[*  JAN  311911   *] 


BX  9815  .P3  1907  v. 5 
Parker,  Theodore,  1810-1860 
[Works] 


(ggntenarg  IBtiition 

' -^ — t — 

LESSONS   FROM   THE    WORLD   OF 

MATTER  AND  THE   WORLD 

OF   MAN 


Lessons  from 
The  World  of  Matter  and 

THE  World  of  Man 


BY 


THEODORE    PARKER 


EDITED    WITH    A    PREFACE 


RUFUS   LEIGHTON 


BOSTON 

AMERICAN   UNITARIAN   ASSOCIATION 

25  Beacon  Street 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE 

The  last  time  that  I  saw  Mr.  Parker,  just  previous 
to  his  leaving  Boston  for  the  West  Indies,  in  the  latter 
part  of  January,  1859,  while  he  was  making  his  final 
arrangements,  not  only  for  the  immediate  voyage,  but 
with  a  view  to  the  possibility  of  his  never  returning,  I 
said  to  him  that  I  should  be  glad  to  publish  a  volume 
of  selections  from  my  phonographic  notes  of  his  ser- 
mons,—  taken  down  from  Sunday  to  Sunday,  as  they 
were  delivered  during  several  years  previous.  He  gave 
his  cordial  assent  to  the  proposal,  and  afterwards  al- 
luded to  it  several  times  in  his  correspondence  with  me 
and  with  others,  during  the  year  that  followed,  while 
vainly  seeking  the  restoration  of  his  health  in  foreign 
lands. 

Shortly  before  I  made  this  suggestion  he  had  written 
to  me  thus :  "  It  has  been  a  great  comfort  to  me  often 
to  think  that  after  I  have  passed  away  some  of  my  best 
things  might  still  be  collected  from  my  rough  notes  and 
your  nice  photograph  of  the  winged  words.  The 
things  I  value  most  are  not  always  such  as  get 
printed." 

The  book  was  commenced  long  since,  but,  from  vari- 
ous considerations,  its  completion  has  been  delayed 
until  this  time.  Since  whatever  of  truth  or  instruc- 
tion it  may  contain  is  as  applicable  at  this  day  as  at 
any  other,  it  is  believed  that  this  postponement  has  not 
impaired  its  value. 

The  selections  have  been  made  from  the  sermons  of 
ten  years,  extending  from  IS-iO  to  1859,  and  embrace 
a  wide  range  of  topics.  A  few  of  them  have  before 
appeared  in  print,  having  been  copied  out  for  the  news- 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE 

papers  of  the  day,  at  the  time  of  the  deKvery  of  the 
sermons ;  but  as  these  are  worthy  of  preservation  in  a 
more  permanent  form,  it  is  thought  best  to  include 
them  here. 

The  aim  has  not  been  to  produce  a  volume  of  bril- 
liant and  striking  passages,  such  as  might  easily  have 
been  gathered  from  the  materials  at  hand,  nor  to  pre- 
sent in  any  comprehensive  and  connected  manner  the 
philosophical  and  religious  opinions  of  Mr.  Parker, 
which  are  given  at  length  in  works  already  before  the 
public.  The  design  has  been  rather  to  bring  together, 
in  a  convenient  form,  some  of  the  familiar  lessons  with 
which  his  sermons  abound,  drawn  from  the  world  of 
matter  and  from  the  nature  and  experience  of  man, 
from  past  history  and  from  passing  events,  and  useful 
as  helps  in  the  formation  of  character  and  the  conduct 
of  life. 

One  of  the  most  striking  peculiarities  of  his  preach- 
ing was  his  happy  faculty  of  presenting  the  highest 
themes,  however  abstruse  or  complex  in  their  nature,  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  render  them  attractive  to  the  thou- 
sands, gathered  from  all  walks  and  conditions  of  life, 
who  so  eagerly  listened  to  him,  and  adapting  them  to 
every  range  of  comprehension.  Another  was  the  con- 
tinual and  varied  illustration  of  his  favorite  idea  that 
religion,  while  the  loftiest  of  all  human  concerns,  is  to 
be  applied  to  every  department  of  human  thought  and 
action,  and  to  rule  not  only  in  the  church,  but  in  the 
state  and  the  community,  and  in  the  daily  life  of  each 
individual  man  ;  —  not  the  "  popular  theology  "  which 
has  hitherto  prevailed,  but  the  "  absolute  religion " 
of  love  to  God  and  love  to  man,  piety  and  morality,  in 
their  numberless  modes  of  manifestation. 

These  characteristics  appear  prominently  in  this  vol- 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE 

ume,  and  it  is  believed  will  render  it  welcome  to  those 
who  may  have  listened  to  the  words  which  are  here  re- 
produced, as  well  as  acceptable  to  others  who  aspire  to 
what  is  good  and  noble,  and  rejoice  in  the  truth  fitly 
spoken. 

RuFUs  Leighton. 


CONTENTS 

Page 

I.    The  Material  World  and  Man's  Relation 

Thereto 1 

II.    The  Nature  of  Man 53 

III.  Traits  and  Illustrations  of  Human  Char- 

acter AND  Conduct 89 

IV.  Phases  of  Domestic  Life 187 

\.    Education 200 

VI.    Human  Institutions  and  National  Life    .  239 

VII.    The    Power   and    Endurance   of  What  is 

Noblest  in  Man 255 

VIII.    Human  Progress 285 

IX.    Jesus  of  Nazareth 304 

X.    Man  in  his  Religious  Aspects     ....  327 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  AND  MAN'S  RELA- 
TION THERETO 

THE  GRANDEUR  OF  THE  NATURAL  WORLD 

The  natural  world  which  a  man  lives  on  and  lives  by 
—  I  mean  the  material  world  of  nature  all  about  us  — 
is  the  same  thing  to  all  who  live  in  the  same  latitude 
and  place.  And  what  a  grand  world  it  is !  1  do  not 
wonder  that  our  old  German  heathen  fathers,  and  so 
many  other  heathens,  worshiped  it.  The  ground 
under  our  feet  is  so  firm-set  and  solid,  the  heavens  over 
our  head  are  so  magnificent,  the  air  about  us  is  so  bland 
when  it  is  still,  so  powerful  when  it  is  stirred  into 
stormy  motion, —  what  a  world  it  is !  All  day  long 
there  are  the  light,  the  clouds,  the  trees,  the  waters. 


the  winds. 


"  Never  weary  of  flowing 
Under  the  Sun," 

"  Never  weary  of  fleeting, 
Since  Time  has  begun." 


All  night  long  the  good  God  shepherds  the  stars  in  the 
wide  pasture  of  heaven ;  He  goeth  before  them,  leadeth 
them  out,  calleth  every  star  by  name,  and  they  know 
His  voice,  the  motherly  voice  of  the  good  Shepherd  of 
the  universe,  to  whom  each  star  is  a  little  lamb,  fed 
and  folded  by  the  infinite  presence  of  Him 

"  Who  doth  perceive  the  stars  from  wrong." 

This  natural  world  is  a  glory  and  a  delight, 

"A  thing  of  beauty,  and  a  joy  forever." 

Men  hard  entreated  with  toil,  or  chasing  after  pleasure, 
XI-l  1 


2   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

after  honor,  after  riches,  after  power,  catch  ghmpses 
of  it  by  stealth,  as  it  were,  as  the  ox  at  the  plough 
reaches  out  from  the  yoke,  and,  hard-breathing,  licks 
up  a  morsel  of  grass.  So,  many  men  see  the  world  of 
nature,  and  get,  now  and  then,  a  mouthful  of  beauty. 
We  all  get  something  of  its  use,  for  we  not  only  live  on 
it,  as  a  foundation,  but  by  it,  as  food  and  shelter. 

This  natural  world  is  "  a  cupboard  of  food  and  a 
cabinet  of  pleasure,"  as  an  old  poet  quaintly  puts  it. 
All  sorts  of  things  are  therein  stored  up  for  present  or 
future  use.  On  the  lower  shelves,  which  the  savage 
man  can  reach  to,  there  are  the  rudest  things, —  acorns, 
roots,  nuts,  berries,  wild  apples,  fish,  and  flesh.  Higher 
up  there  are  corn,  salt,  wool,  cotton,  stones  with  fire  to 
be  beaten  out  of  them  by  striking  them  together ;  then 
live  animals  of  various  sorts ;  next,  metals,  Iron,  cop- 
per, silver,  gold,  and  the  like, —  all  ready  to  spring  into 
man's  hand,  and  serve  him,  when  he  can  reach  up  to 
them  and  take  them  down.  A  little  further  up  there 
are  things  to  adorn  the  body, —  ocher  to  paint  the 
cheeks,  feathers  to  trim  the  head,  rubies  and  diamonds, 
and  many  a  twisted  shell,  still  further  to  ornament  and 
set  off  the  world;  all  sorts  of  finery  for  the  Nootka 
Sound  female  and  the  Parisian  woman.  Still  higher 
up  are  laid  the  winds  to  grind  man's  corn,  waters  to 
sift  his  meal ;  and  above  these  are  coals  waiting  to 
become  fire,  and  to  be  made  the  force  of  oxen,  winds, 
rivers,  and  men.  Yet  higher  up  lie  the  gases  which 
are  to  light  a  city,  or  take  away  the  grief  of  a  wound, 
and  make  a  man  invulnerable  and  invincible  to  pain. 
Higher  still  are  things  which  no  man  has  climbed  up 
to  and  looked  on  as  yet.  There  they  lie,  shelf  rising 
above  shelf,  gallery  above  gallery,  and  the  ceiling  Is  far 
out  of  the  telescopic  sight  of  the  farthest-sighted  man. 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  3 

A  short  savage,  like  King  Philip  of  Pokanoket,  looks  on 
the  lower  shelves  and  takes  what  he  wants, —  a  club,  a 
chip  of  stone,  a  handful  of  sea-shells,  a  deer-skin,  a  bit 
of  flesh,  a  few  ears  of  com, —  and  is  content  with  them, 
and  thanks  God  for  the  world  he  lives  in.  But  the 
civilized  man  who  has  grown  as  tall  as  Captain  Ericsson 
reaches  higher,  and  takes  down  cattle  power,  wind 
power,  water  power,  steam  power,  lightning  power, 
and  hands  them  to  the  smaller  boys,  to  us  who  have 
not  yet  grown  up  to  reach  so  high.  Some  of  the 
tallest-minded  of  the  human  tribe  stand  on  tiptoe  and 
look  up  as  high  as  they  can  see,  and  then  report  to  us 
the  great  machinery  and  astronomical  wheel- work 
which  keeps  the  sun  and  moon  in  their  place ;  or  report 
of  the  smaller  machinery,  the  nice  chemical  and  elec- 
trical gearing  which  holds  the  atoms  of  a  pebble 
together,  and  whereb}'  the  great  world  grows  grass 
for  oxen  and  com  for  men.  This  is  as  high  as  any 
mortal  man  has  got  as  yet ;  and  it  is  a  great  way  to 
climb  from  the  acorn  on  the  bottom  shelf  up  to  the 
celestial  mechanics  on  the  upper  shelf,  which  Newton 
and  Laplace  are  only  tall  enough  to  look  over  and 
handle. 

Such  is  the  natural  world  that  we  live  on  and  by.  It 
is  the  home  of  us  all,  and  the  dear  God  is  the  great 
housekeeper  and  the  ever-present  mother  therein.  He 
lights  the  fires  every  morning,  and  puts  them  out  every 
night ;  yea,  hangs  up  the  lamps,  and  makes  it  all  snug 
for  the  famil}^  to  sleep  in,  beneath  his  motherly  watch- 
fulness, all  night  long,  till  the  morning  fire  awakes 
again,  and,  glittering  along  the  east,  shines  into  his 
children's  brightening  ej'es. 

This  world  of  nature  is  meant  for  all.  The  sun 
shines  on  the  evil  and  the  good,  and  the  rain  rains  on 


4   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

the  just  and  the  unjust.  The  same  ground  is  under 
General  Pierce  and  his  pig,  and  the  same  heavens  are 
over  the  astronomer  and  his  dog ;  and  dog  and  astrono- 
mer, pig  and  president,  all  live  on,  live  under,  live  in  the 
same  natural  world,  and  the  All-Bountiful  is  father 
and  mother  to  them  all,  not  over-honoring  the  astrono- 
mer, not  undervaluing  the  dog  or  the  swine.  And  yet 
what  a  very  different  world  it  is  to  pig  and  president, 
to  dog  and  astronomer!  To  such  as  look  only  at  the 
lower  shelves  it  is  a  dull,  hard,  prosy  world.  To  those 
who  reach  up  to  fashion  and  finery,  to  the  nicknacks 
of  nature,  it  is  a  dainty  show  of  pretty  things,  a  sort 
of  great  Vanity  Fair,  where  Mrs.  Jezebel  and  Mr. 
Absolom  are  to  adorn  and  make  themselves  comely. 
To  others  —  who  see  the  great  uses  in  the  power  of 
things,  the  great  loveliness  in  the  beauty  of  things, 
the  great  wisdom  in  the  meaning  of  things  —  it  is  a 
serious  world,  very  serious ;  but  a  lovely  world,  very 
lovely ;  and  a  divine  world,  very  divine ;  full  of  God's 
power,  God's  wisdom,  God's  justice,  God's  beauty,  and 
God's  love,  running  out  into  the  blossoms  of  the  ground 
and  the  blossoms  of  the  sky ;  the  whole  universe  a  great 
manifold  flower  of  God,  who  holds  it  in  His  own  right 
hand. 

It  always  seemed  to  me  that  this  material  world 
prophesied  something  a  great  many  times  greater  and 
grander  than  the  highest  man  had  yet  seen  or  told  of. 
I  do  not  believe  that  God  made  this  grand  world  of 
nature  as  the  background  to  a  little  dwarfish  picture  of 
spirit.  The  great  power  of  nature,  the  great  beauty 
of  nature,  and  its  great  sense,  are  all  prophetic  of  a 
power,  beauty,  and  sense  which  matter  knows  not  of, 
which  it  will  take  great  men  and  great  generations  of 
great  men  to  fulfil  and  accomplish.     But  it  will  one 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  5 

day  be.  It  will  take  place  in  the  golden  ages,  which 
are  not  behind  us,  but  before  us,  and  which  are  to  be 
reached  by  your  toil,  and  your  prayer,  and  your 
thought,  and  sweat,  and  watching.  I  love  to  read  the 
prophecy  which  God  Himself  has  writ  in  the  world  of 
nature.  Every  piece  of  coal,  every  bit  of  iron, —  why, 
it  was  a  prophecy  of  steam-engines  and  steam-ships, 
if  men  had  only  the  wit  to  read  the  oracle !  And  so 
this  natural  world,  with  its  powers,  its  beauty,  its 
meaning, —  why,  it  is  a  prophecy  of  a  great  human 
world  that  is  to  come,  whereof  the  Isaiahs,  the  So- 
crateses,  the  Jesuses,  and  the  Newtons,  were  only  the 
prophets  who  foretold  the  beginning  of  the  golden 
ages  that  are  to  come. 

LAW  IN  THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER 

In  the  universe,  all  is  done  according  to  law,  by  the 
regular  and  orderly  action  of  the  forces  thereof ;  there 
is  a  constant  mode  of  operation,  which  never  changes. 
Nothing  is  done  by  human  magic,  nothing  by  divine 
miracle.  Religious  poets  tell  us  that  God  said  in  He- 
brew speech,  "  Let  the  earth  be !  "  and  it  was  forth- 
with. "  Let  the  waters  bring  forth  fish,  the  air  fowls, 
and  the  earth  cattle !  " —  and  it  was  done.  But  when 
you  consult  the  record  of  the  earth  itself,  you  find  that 
the  six  days'  miracle  of  the  poet  are  millions  of  years' 
work  of  the  divine  forces  of  the  universe.  These 
forces  are  always  adequate  to  achieve  their  divine  pur- 
pose, with  no  miraculous  help,  no  intervention,  no  new 
creation  of  forces ;  and  in  that  immense  book  of  space, 
whose  leaves  date  back  through  such  vast  periods  of 
time,  there  is  not  a  single  miracle  recorded ;  not  once 
does  it  appear  that  God  inten^encd  and  changed  the 
normal  action  of  any  single  thing. 


6   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

One  star  differs  from  another  star  in  glory  —  not 
at  all  in  the  perfect  keeping  of  every  law  of  its  ex- 
istence as  a  star. 

SCIENCE  DEPENDENT  UPON  LAW  IN  THE  WORLD 
OF  MATTER 

The  law  of  the  world  of  matter  is  knowable  by  man, 
and  when  his  thought  comprehends  that,  the  world  of 
matter  is  manageable  by  his  toil,  and  he  can  use  its 
forces  to  serve  his  end.  This  power  of  science  depends 
not  only  on  the  mind  itself,  but  on  the  nice  relation 
between  that  and  the  world  of  matter  outside.  What 
if  this  world  of  matter  were  —  as  the  ministers  often- 
times tell  us  it  is  —  a  bundle  of  incoherent  things,  no 
constant  law  in  force  therein,  God  intervening  by 
capricious  miracle,  to  turn  a  stick  into  a  snake,  water 
to  blood,  dust  to  flies  and  creeping  things,  mud  to 
frogs,  and  ashes  to  a  plague  on  beasts  and  men ;  what 
if  He  sent  miraculous  darkness  which  could  be  felt,  to 
revenge  Him  on  some  handful  of  wicked  men;  what  if 
by  miracle  He  opened  the  sea  and  let  a  nation  through, 
and  then  poured  the  waters  back  on  the  advancing  foe ; 
what  if  the  rocks  became  water,  and  the  heavens 
rained  bread  for  forty  years ;  what  if  the  sun  and 
moon  stood  still  and  let  a  filibustering  troop  destroy 
their  foe;  what  if  iron  swam  at  some  man's  com- 
mand; what  if  a  whale  engulfed  a  disobedient 
prophet  who  fled  from  God's  higher  law,  and  kept 
him  three  days  shut  up,  till  he  made  a  great  poetic 
psalm ;  what  if  a  son  were  born  with  no  human  father, 
and  could  by  miracle  walk  on  the  waves  as  on  dry  land, 
feed  five  thousand  men  with  five  little  barley  loaves, 
and  have  in  reserve  twelve  baskets  full  of  broken 
bread;  what  if  he  could  still  the  winds  and  the  waters 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  7 

with  a  word,  rebuke  disease,  restore  the  lame  and  the 
blind  at  a  touch,  and  wake  the  dead  with  "  Lazarus, 
con^  forth !  "  Why !  science  would  not  be  possible  ; 
there  would  be  nothing  but  stupid  wonder  and  amaze- 
ment, and  instead  of  the  grand  spectacle  of  a  universe, 
with  law  everywhere,  thought  waking  reason  every- 
where, and  stirring  Newton  to  write  the  Principia 
of  Natural  Science,  Linnaeus  to  describe  the  systems  of 
plants,  Laplace  to  cipher  out  the  mechanics  of  the 
sky,  Kant  to  unfold  the  metaphysics  of  man  and  the 
philosophy  of  human  history,  and  the  masterly  in- 
tellect of  Cuvier  to  classify  the  animal  kingdom, — 
mankind  thereby  growing  wiser,  and  still  more  power- 
ful,—  we  should  have  a  priest's  world  of  capricious 
chaos,  some  prophet  going  up  to  heaven  on  his  own 
garment,  some  witch  careering  on  a  broom,  and  man 
vulgarly  staring,  as  in  a  farmer's  yard  a  calf  stands 
gaping  at  some  new  barn-door.  What  is  the  world 
of  monkish  legend,  the  world  of  the  Arabian  Nights' 
Entertainments,  the  world  of  the  Catholic  Church,  the 
world  of  the  Calvinistic  Church,  or  of  the  popular 
theology  of  our  times,  compared  with  the  grand  world 
which  God  has  made  it, —  stars  millions  of  millions  of 
miles  away  looking  down  on  these  flowers  at  my  side, 
and  all  the  way  between,  law,  order,  never  once  a 
miracle,  and  all  this  so  wondrously  and  tenderly  re- 
lated to  man's  mind! 

THE  RELATION  OF  SMALL  THINGS  TO  GREAT 

Look  at  this  clothed  congregation,  and  see  whence 
all  this  vast  array  of  handsome  dress  has  been  gathered 
up !  Part  of  it  came  from  the  backs  of  fur-clad 
beasts,  which  only  polar  cold  can  bear ;  the  linen  grew 
up  from  the  cool  temperate  soil ;  tropic  heat  furnished 


8   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

the  cotton ;  the  Kttle  silkworm  has  spun  the  substance 
of  appropriate  trees,  which  change  their  leaves  to  cov- 
ering for  the  Adams  and  Eves  of  civilization.  Various 
colors  which  more  than  imitate  the  rainbow,  have  been 
gathered  from  the  vegetable,  animal,  and  mineral 
worlds  ;  —  and  all  these  depend,  directly,  on  the  struc- 
tural character  of  the  globe  itself.  As  the  rainbow 
is  the  child  of  the  sun  and  cloud,  nursed  by  lightning, 
waited  on  by  gravitation,  and  girted  into  handsome 
shape  by  the  spheric  globe  itself,  so  yonder  bonnet, 
the  triumph  of  the  milliner's  art  and  the  wearer's  taste, 
is  daughter  of  vegetation  and  animation,  grand-child 
of  the  mineral  world,  which  dowers  it  with  such  hand- 
some hues,  and  in  strict  geologic  descent,  traces  its 
aristocratic  lineage  back  to  the  earth's  attractional 
orbit,  and  the  constitution  of  the  solar  system.  A  little 
change  in  that  far-off  ancestry,  and  there  could  not 
be  a  bonnet  in  Boston  to-day,  more  than  a  woman  to 
wear  it,  or  a  young  man  to  look  delighted  thereon. 

MIND  IN  THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER 

We  perceive  everywhere  proofs  of  intelligence  in  the 
world  of  matter, —  a  something  which  knows  and  wills. 
It  is  not  brute  force,  acting  without  knowledge  and 
will,  but  an  intelligent  power,  working  by  means  well 
understood,  continually  directed  to  certain  ends,  which 
were  meant  to  take  place. 

This  intelligence  let  us  call  by  the  name  of  mind, —  a 
power  which  knows  without  process  of  thought,  wills 
without  hesitation  and  choice ;  not  mind  with  human 
limitations,  but  absolute. 

The  evidences  of  this  mind  are  to  be  seen  on  every 
hand ;  on  a  large  scale,  in  the  structural  plan  of  the 
whole  solar  system, —  for  every  orb  moves  forever  in  its 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  9 

calculated  track,  which  is  shaped  by  the  joint  action  of 
the  sun  and  every  planet,  all  of  which  act  constantly 
by  their  law  of  motion ;  seen  also  in  the  structure  of 
the  earth,  in  its  complicated  form,  in  the  arrangement 
of  its  great  divisions  of  matter  into  air,  water,  land, 
and  in  the  special  composition  of  each  of  these,  and 
the  fitness  of  each  for  its  special  function.  And  on  a 
small  scale,  you  see  the  same  power  of  mind  in  the 
formation  of  crystals,  the  growth  of  plants,  and  the 
insects  which  live  thereon. 

Study  the  leaf  of  an  orange-tree :  what  wisdom  is  dis- 
played in  its  structure ;  how  admirable  its  architecture, 
what  nice  frame-work,  what  exquisite  finish ;  how  intel- 
ligibly are  the  elements  combined  in  its  chemistry ;  how 
the  power  of  vegetation  assimilates  the  particles  of 
earth,  air,  water,  whereby  it  grows  into  a  plant !  What 
a  function  the  leaf  has  to  perform, —  this  little  mason, 
building  up  the  stem  of  a  tree,  and  getting  ready  the 
substance  of  its  flower  and  fruit !  See  the  apparatus 
by  which  the  plant  breathes  and  gets  its  food !  No 
city  government  can  get  a  steam-engine  to  pump  water 
with  such  economy  as  this  little  Miles  Greenwood 
uses  to  keep  itself  always  fired  up,  and  ready  for  ac- 
tion. 

Look  at  the  aphis  which  has  its  world  on  this  little 
leaf !  See  with  what  intelligence  the  same  mind  has 
fashioned  this  minute  creature ;  what  organs  he  has  to 
satisfy  his  individual  wants ;  what  power  to  perpetuate 
his  race,  wherewith  he  takes  hold  on  eternit}-,  forward 
and  backward.  Behind  him  he  has  a  line  of  ancestors 
reaching  beyond  Noah,  INIcthuselah,  and  Adam.  Study 
his  internal  structure ;  how  wonderful  the  means  which 
conspire  to  form  his  insect  life !  No  municipal  govern- 
ment is  carried  on  with  such  wisdom.     How  admirable 


10   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

must  be  that  constitution  which  gives  unity  of  action  to 
all  his  members, —  all  working  as  one, —  and  secures 
variety  of  action  to  each,  individual  freedom  for  each 
special  member!  It  is  so  everywhere  in  the  world  of 
matter. 

Now  turn  over  that  great  volume  wherein  for  many 
million  years  the  Daily  Journal  and  Evening  Transcript 
of  the  world  appear,  each  leaf  bound  in  stone ;  study 
through  this  Old  Testament  of  ages  past,  and  in  every 
page,  in  every  line,  in  each  letter,  do  you  find  the  same 
mind,  power  of  knowledge  and  will,  and  that  power  is 
constant  in  all  time  which  this  great  earthen  book  keeps 
record  of,  and  It  is  continuous  in  all  space  whereof 
its  annals  tell.  The  more  comprehensively  things  are 
studied  on  a  great  scale,  the  more  vast  this  mind  ap- 
pears, in  its  far-reaching  scope  of  time  and  space. 
The  more  minutely  things  are  inquired  after  on  a  small 
scale,  the  more  delicate  appears  this  mind  in  its  action. 
The  solar  system  is  not  too  big  for  it  to  grasp  and 
hold,  nor  the  eye  of  an  aphis  too  small  for  it  to  finish 
off  and  provide  for. 

POWER,  LAW  AND  MIND  IN  THE  UNIVERSE 

The  whole  universe  of  matter  Is  a  great  mundane 
psalm  to  celebrate  the  reign  of  power,  law,  mind. 
Fly  through  the  solar  system  from  remotest  Neptune 
to  the  sun, —  power,  law,  mind,  attend  your  every  step. 
Study  each  planet,  it  is  still  the  same, —  power,  law, 
mind.  Ask  every  little  orange  leaf,  ask  the  aphis  that 
feeds  thereon,  ask  the  Insect  corpses  lying  in  millions 
In  the  dead  ashes  of  the  farmer's  peat  fire,  the  remains 
of  mollusks  which  gave  up  the  ghost  millions  of  years 
before  man  trod  the  globe, —  they  all,  with  united 
voice,  answer  still  the  same, —  power,  law,  mind.     In 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  11 

all  the  space  from  Neptune  to  the  sun,  in  all  the  time 
from  the  silicious  shell  to  the  orange  leaf  of  to-day, 
there  is  no  failure  of  that  power,  no  break  of  that  law, 
no  cessation  in  its  constant  mode  of  operation,  no 
single  error  of  that  mind,  whereof  all  space  is  here,  all 
time  is  now.  So  the  world  is  witness  continually  to 
power,  to  never-failing  law,  to  mind  that  is  every- 
where ;  is  witness  to  that  ever-present  Power  which  men 
call  God.  Look  up,  and  reverence ;  bow  down,  and 
trust ! 

Every  rose  is  an  autograph  from  the  hand  of  the  Al- 
mighty God.  On  this  world  about  us  He  has  inscribed 
His  thought,  in  those  marvelous  hieroglyphs  which 
sense  and  science  have  been  these  many  thousand  years 
seeking  to  understand.  The  universe  itself  is  a  great 
autograph  of  the  Almighty. 

DIVINE  LOVE  IN  THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER 

The  average  age  of  this  audience  is  perhaps  some 
forty  years ;  perhaps  the  human  race  has  been  on  the 
earth  a  thousand  times  as  long.  Well,  forty  thousand 
years  is  not  so  large  a  proportion  of  this  earth's  ex- 
istence as  my  hour's  sermon  is  of  mankind's  existence ; 
but,  as  Sirius  is  far  from  the  earth  in  space,  so  far 
from  you  and  me  in  time  is  the  beginning  of  the  ma- 
terial history  of  the  earth,  which  the  geologist  finds 
written  in  the  sacred  codex  of  the  world, —  the  Old 
Testament  of  God,  written  by  Him  in  tables  of  real 
stone.  Yet  in  that  far  time,  many  millions  of  millions 
of  years  away,  was  mind  controlling  the  power  of 
matter  by  a  constant  mode  of  operation,  to  this  end, — 
to  man, —  and  his  relation  to  matter  was  provided  then. 
The  size  and  shape  of  the  earth  and  its  attractional 


12   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

orbit  were  then  fixed;  the  time  of  day  and  night;  the 
constitution  of  the  air,  which  lets  the  solar  heat  and 
light  come  in ;  the  provision  for  food,  shelter,  medi- 
cine, and  tools ;  —  all  so  fixed  that  they  were  sure  to 
come,  each  in  its  proper  time, —  the  stone  first  for  the 
wild  man,  and  for  the  enlightened  the  electric  telegraph 
which  runs  beneath  the  sea. 

In  all  that  space  and  time  there  is  no  cessation  of 
power,  law,  mind,  whereof  Earth's  records  tell ;  God 
immanent  always,  not  once  withdrawn.  And  in  that 
mighty  space,  that  immense  of  time,  there  is  not  the 
record  of  a  single  miracle  or  departure  from  law.  God, 
ever  present,  never  intervenes ;  acting  ever  by  law,  a 
miracle  becomes  needless,  and  also  impossible.  Look  at 
all  this  in  its  vast  greatness  in  time  and  space,  then 
consider  the  delicacy  of  that  Providence,  and  see  how 
nicely  the  eye  is  fitted  to  light ;  and  consider  this 
mighty  space  and  this  immense  time  are  so  with  deli- 
cacy filled  up ;  and  then  if  it  is  power,  law,  mind,  which 
moves  our  astonishment  at  first,  the  deeper  second 
thought  is  the  love  which  animates  that  mind  to  use 
that  power,  and  by  that  law  achieve  the  dear  blessing 
which  the  motive  of  God  at  first  desired, —  the  blessing 
for  you  and  me,  and  every  living  thing.  Forego  that 
transcendent  truth  of  the  perfection  of  the  relation  of 
matter  and  man  which  I  deduce  from  the  idea  of  God 
as  infinite  perfection,  and  the  very  fact  of  that  relation 
leads  us  to  infer,  not  only  power,  law,  mind,  but  that 
dear  love  which  sends  the  sun  so  sweetly  round  the 
world, — 

"  From  seeming  evil  still  educing  good, 
And  better  tlience  again,  and  better  still. 
In  infinite  progression." 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  13 

THE   EFFECT   OF    MATERIAL    CIRCUMSTANCES    ON 
ANIM^U^S 

See  the  effect  of  material  circumstances  on  animals. 
In  the  spring,  warm  weather  brings  out  the  flies,  gnats, 
and  swarms  of  other  insects  ;  and  thej  will  multiply  just 
in  proportion  to  the  geniality  of  the  weather  and  the 
supply  of  their  food.  More  requires  more,  and  less 
requires  less ;  and  the  multiplication  of  insect  life  is 
exactly  in  proportion  to  the  means  of  its  support. 
With  the  increase  of  insects  there  will  come  an  increase 
of  the  purple  martin,  the  swallow,  and  other  birds  that 
feed  thereon.  Let  a  cold  summer  kill  the  insects,  and 
the  martins  will  disappear.  Napoleon  Bonaparte  mul- 
tiplied beasts  of  prey  and  birds  of  rapine.  They  fed 
on  the  wreck  of  armies  that  went  to  pieces  under  his 
hand ;  and  Napoleon  Bonaparte  was  the  great  father 
of  wolves  and  vultures,  because  he  furnished  the  ma- 
terial conditions  which  gave  them  birth,  as  much  as  if 
he  had  sat  on  the  vulture's  nest,  and  brooded  her  eggs 
with  his  own  selfish  bosom. 

RESER^T:D  POWER 

Everywhere  in  the  world  there  is  an  exhibition  of 
power,  force  active  to-day.  Everywhere,  likewise,  there 
is  a  reserve  of  power,  force  waiting  for  to-morrow. 
Force  is  potent  everywhere,  but  latent  as  well.  All 
men  see  the  active  power,  all  do  not  see  the  power  which 
waits  till  it  comes  of  age  to  do  its  work. 

In  order  to  get  the  general  analogy  of  the  universe  to 
bear  upon  this  particular  matter  in  hand,  the  power  of 
progressive  development  in  the  human  race,  look  at  the 
plainest  examples  of  this  reserved  power  in  nature.  All 
around  us  the  fields  lie  sleeping  under  their  coverlet  of 


U      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

frost.  Only  the  mosses,  the  lichens,  and  other  cryp- 
togamy  have  any  green  and  growing  life.  Every  hide- 
bound tree  has  taken  in  sail,  and  sent  down  its  topmast, 
housed  the  rigging,  and  lies  stripped  there  in  bay, 
waiting  for  navigation  to  open  in  March  and  April. 
Even  the  well-clad  bear  has  coiled  himself  up  for  his 
hibernating  sleep  all  winter  long;  the  frogs  and 
snakes  and  toads  have  hid  their  heads ;  the  swarms 
of  insects  all  are  still.  Nature  has  put  her  little  ones 
to  bed. 

"Hush,  my  babe!  lie  still  and  slumber! 
Holy  angels  guard  thy  bed. 
Heavenly  blessings  without  number 
Rest  upon  thy  infant  head ! " 

This  is  the  evening  cradle-song  wherewith  Nature  lulls 
the  reptile,  insect,  bear,  and  tree,  to  their  winter  sleep. 

Look  at  the  scene  next  June.  What  life  in  the 
ground,  in  the  trees  spreading  their  sails  to  every  wind, 
in  the  reptiles,  in  the  insects !  Nature  wakens  her  little 
ones  in  the  new  morning,  and  sends  them  out  to  the 
world's  great  vineyard  to  bear  the  burden  in  the  heat 
of  the  day,  sure  of  their  penny  at  its  end. 

What  a  reserve  of  power  lies  in  the  ground  under 
our  feet,  in  the  silent  throat  of  every  bird,  in  the  scale- 
clad  buds  on  oak  and  apple-tree !  What  energy  sleeps 
in  that  hibernating  bear,  who  in  spring  will  come  out 
from  his  hole  in  the  Green  Mountains,  and  woo  his 
shaggy  mate,  and  ere  long  rejoice  in  the  parental  joys 
of  home, 

"  His  wee  bit  ingle  blinkin'  bonnily, 
His  clean  hearth-stane,  his  thriftie  wifie's  smile." 

A  few  years  ago  men  brought  from  Egypt  to  Tuscany 
some   grains   of  wheat  which  a  farmer  had   laid  up 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  15 

thirty-five  or  forty  hundred  years  ago.  They  put  it 
in  the  ground  in  Italy,  and  the  power  which  those  little 
grains  had  kept  so  long  waked  up  bright,  and  grew 
wheat  there,  just  as  if  nothing  had  happened  since 
Sesostris  marched  his  Egyptians,  and  set  up  pillars 
and  temples  from  Asia  minor  to  the  Indus,  which  Her- 
odotus saw  two  and  twenty  hundred  years  ago.  All 
the  coffee  plants  in  America,  it  is  said,  have  come  from 
two  little  trees  which  a  Dominican  priest  brought  here 
from  Spain ;  and  when  the  ship  was  on  short  allowance 
for  water,  he  divided  his  pint  a  day,  taking  a  half-pint 
for  himself,  and  sparing  a  gill  for  each  of  his  trees ; 
and  so  they  lasted,  and  were  planted  in  Saint  Domingo, 
and  now  they  are  spread  all  over  the  tropic  continent. 

Three  hundred  years  ago  New  England  was  a  wilder- 
ness, with  wild  beasts  howling  in  the  forests,  and  thirty 
thousand  lazy,  half-naked  Indians  howling  wilder  than 
the  beasts.  Idle  rivers  ran  idly  to  an  idle  sea,  flapping 
to  the  moon's  attraction,  as  restless  and  as  lazy  as  a 
summer  cloud.  Then  New  England  was  shaggy  with 
awful  woods,  the  only  garment  of  the  savage  land.  In 
April  the  windflower  came  out,  and  the  next  month 
the  maple  saw  his  red  beauties  reflected  in  the  Con- 
necticut and  the  Merrimac.  In  June  the  water-lily 
opened  her  fragrant  bosom.  Who  saw  it.''  Only  here 
and  there  some  young  squaw,  thinking  of  her  dusky 
lover,  turned  to  look  at  its  beauty,  or  the  long-lipped 
moose  came  down  in  the  morning  and  licked  up  its 
fragrance  from  the  river's  breast ;  and  otherwise  the 
maple  bloomed  and  blushed  unseen,  and  the  lily  wasted 
its  sweetness  on  the  desert  air. 

Now  civil-suited  New  England  has  gardens,  or- 
chards, fields,  is  nicely  girded  with  earthen  and  iron 
roads,  and  jeweled  all  over  with  cities  and  fair  towns. 


16      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 
The  shaggy  wood  has  been  trimmed  away,  and  is  only 
"  A  scarf  about  her  decent  shoulders  thrown." 

Three  millions  of  men  are  snugly  cradled  in  New 
England's  lap.  The  winds  have  been  put  to  work. 
The  ground,  so  lazy  once,  has  no  Sunday  but  the  win- 
ter now.  The  rivers  have  been  put  out  to  apprentice, 
and  become  blacksmiths,  paper-makers,  spinners,  and 
weavers.  The  ocean  is  a  constant  ferryman,  always  at 
work,  fetching  and  carrying  between  the  comers  of  the 
world.  Even  the  lightning  has  been  called  in  from  his 
playground,  and  set  to  work ;  he  must  keep  the  side- 
walk now  when  he  travels,  for  we  regulate  the  police 
of  the  sky ;  Dr.  Franklin  began  that  work.  The  light- 
ning must  no  longer  burn  up  meeting-houses, —  a  fa- 
vorite errand  which  the  devil  used  to  send  him  on  of 
old  time,  as  Cotton  Mather  said, —  he  must  keep  the 
peace  now ;  swift-footed,  he  must  run  of  errands  for 
the  family.  We  say  "Go ! "  and  the  lightning  has 
gone ;  "  Come ! "  and  the  lightning  is  at  our  hand ; 
*'  Do  this !  "  and  the  lightning  sets  about  it. 

Now  the  difference  between  the  New  England  of 
three  hundred  years  ago  and  the  New  England  of  to- 
day, was  all  a  reserved  power  once.  The  Merrimac 
was  the  same  river  to  the  Indian  that  it  is  now  to  the 
American ;  the  ground  and  sky  were  the  same ;  the 
earth  does  not  secrete  a  different  form  of  lightning 
from  that  which  of  old  crinkled  through  the  sky,  ut- 
tering its  thunder  as  it  went. 

The  change  in  the  human  race  from  the  beginning 
till  now  Is  immensely  greater  than  the  change  from  the 
Massachusetts  of  red  Governor  Massasoit  to  the  Massa- 
chusetts of  pale  Governor  Clifford.  All  the  difference 
between  the  first  generation  of  men  on  earth  —  without 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  17, 

house  or  garment,  without  wife  or  speech,  without  con- 
sciousness of  God  or  consciousness  of  self  —  and  the 
most  cultivated  society  or  religious  men  of  England  and 
America,  was  once  a  power  of  progress  which  lay  there 
in  human  nature.  The  savage  bore  within  him  the 
germ  of  Michael  Angelo,  of  Laplace,  and  Moses,  and 
Jesus.  The  capability  of  the  nineteenth  century  lay 
in  the  first  generation  of  men,  as  the  New  England  of 
to-day  lay  in  the  New  England  of  three  hundred  years 
ago,  or  as  the  wheat  of  the  Tuscan  harvest  lay  in 
those  few  Egyptian  grains;  it  lay  there  in  the  human 
faculties,  asleep,  unseen,  and  unfelt,  with  the  instinct 
of  progressive  development  belonging  thereto.  All  the 
mighty  growth  of  the  pagan  civilization,  of  the  He- 
brew, the  Buddhistic,  the  Mahometan,  and  the  Chris- 
tian, lay  there  unseen  in  man.  A  thousand  years  ago, 
who  would  have  dared  to  prophesy  the  industrial  civ- 
ilization of  New  England  to-day?  When  Sir  Francis 
Drake  scoured  the  seas,  capturing  every  vessel  that  he 
could  overmaster,  great  pirate  that  he  was,  murdering 
the  crews  of  Spanish  galleons,  and  burning  them  at 
sea  after  he  had  taken  the  silver,  when  he  landed  on 
the  coast  if  Peru  and  Chili,  and  violated  the  women, 
and  butchered  the  men,  and  burned  the  towns,  leaving 
blackness  and  desolation  behind  him,  and  doing  it  for 
sport's  sake, —  who  would  have  dared  to  prophesy  the 
peaceful  commerce  which,  under  the  twofold  Anglo- 
Saxon  flag  of  England  and  America,  now  covers  the 
ocean  with  the  white  blossom  of  the  peace  of  the  nine- 
teenth century?  Nobody  would  have  dared  to  proph- 
esy this  in  the  days  of  Sir  Francis  Drake. 

But,  is  this  progress  to  stop  here?     Have  the  average 
nations  reached  the  capacity  of  mankind?     Have  the 

most  enlightened  nations  exhausted  the  capacity  for 
XI— 2 


18   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

human  improvement?  Has  the  foremost  man  of  all  the 
world  drank  dry  the  cup  of  humanity?  Newton,  Hum- 
boldt, Moses,  Jesus, —  they  have  only  scooped  out  and 
drank  a  handful  of  water  from  the  well  which  opens 
into  that  vast  ocean  of  faculties  which  God  created, 
the  mighty  deep  of  human  nature. 

How  has  the  civilization  of  the  world  thus  far  been 
achieved?  By  the  great  men  coming  together,  a  thou- 
sand years  ago,  and  saying,  "  Let  us  advance  man- 
kind"? The  great  men  were  not  great  enough  for 
that.  It  has  taken  place  in  the  providence  of  God, 
who,  from  perfect  motives,  of  perfect  material,  for  a 
perfect  purpose,  as  perfect  means,  created  this  human 
nature,  put  into  it  this  reserve  of  power,  put  about  it 
this  reserve  of  material  elements,  wherewith  to  make 
a  Jacob's  Ladder  to  clamber  continually  upwards  to- 
ward God,  our  prayer  being  the  hand  which  reaches  up, 
while  our  practice  is  the  foot  which  sustains  the  weight 
which  the  prayer  steadies.  There  is  no  end  to  this 
power  of  progressive  development  in  man,  at  least  none 
that  you  and  I  can  discover. 

THE  ABUNDANCE  OF  BEAUTY  IN  THE  WORLD 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  things  in  the  world  is  the 
abundance  of  beauty ;  of  what  not  only  feeds,  clothes, 
and  outwardly  serves  the  material  needs  of  man,  but 
also  pleases  the  sense  and  soul,  feeding  and  comforting 
the  finer  and  nicer  faculties  of  men.  By  the  instinct 
of  self-preservation  we  cling,  all  of  us,  to  the  material 
side  of  nature,  and  are  thereby  fed  and  nestled  and 
warmed  in  body ;  but  while  doing  this  we  catch  sight  of 
nature's  beauty  also,  and  are  contended  in  a  higher  sort, 
nestled  yet  more  tenderly.  As  the  hungry  Jews,  in 
the  Old  Testament  story,  went  to  bed  grumbling,  and 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  19 

rose  the  next  momins:  not  knowing:  how  or  whence  to 
break  their  fast,  and  behold,  there  lay  the  manna,  clean 
as  new  frost  on  the  ground,  saying  as  plain  as  food 
could  say,  "  Come  now,  ye  unbelievers,  eat  and  be  fed !  " 
so  this  angels'  bread  of  beauty,  which,  "  like  manna, 
hath  the  taste  of  all  in  it,"  lies  on  the  ground  under 
our  feet ;  it  lodges  on  the  bushes  in  the  country,  clings 
to  the  city  walls,  and  is  always  falling  from  the  sky. 
God,  after  setting  before  us  what  we  turn  into  bread, 
and  garments,  and  houses,  and  musical  instruments, 
and  books,  gives  us  the  benediction  of  beauty  as  an 
unexpected  grace  after  meat. 

The  commonest  things  in  the  world  are  adorned,  not 
with  ornaments  which  are  put  on,  but  with  beauty 
which  grows  out  of  their  substance,  which  affects  their 
form  and  shines  through  every  lineament.  The  grass 
which  springs  up  in  the  cracks  of  city  streets,  or  which 
in  meadows  the  farmer's  ox  licks  up  by  handfuls,  the 
delight  of  the  cattle,  who  twice  enjoy  their  food, — • 
what  a  beautiful  thing  it  is  in  shape,  in  color  how  ex- 
ceeding fair!  How  attractive  to  the  eyes  are  the 
grains,  from  the  bearded  bread  of  horses  which  loves 
the  northern  lands,  to  the  queen  of  cereal  plants,  south- 
em  bom,  and  loving  still  the  sun,  the  Pocahontas  of 
grains,  the  great  Indian  Empress  of  Corn !  The  roots 
which  the  beasts  and  which  men  feed  upon, —  what 
homely  and  yet  what  comely  things  they  are ;  nay,  the 
commonest  of  them  all  has  in  its  homely  shape  a  certain 
rather  hard  but  masculine  beauty  and  attractiveness. 
I  cannot  see  them  lying  in  heaps  in  the  farmers'  fields, 
or  in  wagon  loads  brought  to  market,  the  earth  still 
clinging  to  their  sides,  without  reverence  for  that  in- 
finite wisdom  which  puts  such  beauty  into  such  common 
things.     How  handsome  are  the  shapes  of  the  apple, 


20   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

pear,  peach,  quince,  plum;  of  the  acorn,  the  nut,  the 
pine  cone,  yea,  of  every  leaf,  from  the  northern  melon 
and  thistle,  down  to  the  proud  palm  which  claps  its 
hands  beneath  the  tropics  to  its  Maker's  praise !  How 
fair  are  all  the  seeds  —  those  which  plump  down  into 
the  ground,  or  which  tangle  themselves  in  the  feathers 
of  birds  or  the  hair  of  oxen,  and  so  are  carried  from 
place  to  place,  or  those  which  in  their  gossamer  bal- 
loons and  parachutes  float  far  off  in  every  breath  of 
wind,  scattering  the  parent  beauty  to  spring  up  in 
fragrant  loveliness  for  ever  fresh  and  for  ever  new. 

Even  homely  things  have  a  certain  beauty  in  their 
use.  Says  one  of  the  greatest  of  this  day's  later  proph- 
ets, "  Despise  not  the  rag  which  man  makes  into  paper, 
nor  the  litter  which  the  earth  makes  into  corn,"  When 
you  look  at  the  uses  of  things,  and  see  the  relation  even 
of  the  homeliest  and  ugliest  of  these  to  the  world  about 
you,  there  is  a  certain  beauty  investing  even  things 
which  are  most  unattractive  to  the  mortal  eye.  So  at 
evening  have  I  seen  a  veil  of  silver  spread  itself  over 
some  little,  drowsy,  vulgar  New  England  town,  coming 
up  just  to  the  roofs  of  the  houses,  leaving  the  village 
steeples  and  chimney-tops  above  that  cloud,  and  the 
dull  town  looked  exceedingly  romantic ;  and  by  and  by 
the  waning  moon  came  up,  and,  with  a  star  or  two  be- 
side her,  rode  through  the  blue  above,  and  looked  down 
and  enchanted  into  loveliness  the  vulgar  town.  Be- 
neath that  silver  veil  tired  nature  slept,  and  men  and 
women  were  transfigured  with  their  dreams. 

Even  in  the  city,  in  the  commonest  street,  if  it  is  only 
a  little  lonesome,  small  plants  find  board  and  lodging  in 
the  chinky  stones,  and  lift  their  thin  faces,  and  seem  to 
wish  good  morning  to  the  rapid-stirring  man  or  maid 
who  knows  these  little  apostles  and  botanic  ministers  at 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  21 

large,  who  are  meant  to  evangelize  the  world,  and  are 
without  staff  or  scrip,  and  who  never  chide  the  unthank- 
ful passenger.  The  fuci  which  float  on  the  still  waters, 
and  fringe  the  timbers  of  the  wharves,  are  lovely  and 
attractive  things ;  and  yet  they  are  so  little  noticed  that 
they  have  not  yet  got  the  welcome  of  an  English  name, 
and  I  must  talk  Latin  when  I  praise  these  humble 
things.  The  waters  themselves,  parting  and  breaking 
into  lovely  forms  before  the  reeking  pink  of  some  Mar- 
blehead  or  Cape  Cod  fisherman,  and  closing  again  be- 
hind it  in  foaming  beauty,  mark  the  sea  with  lovely 
lines  of  sparkling  light,  by  night  or  day.  The  pros- 
trate timbers,  chafing  with  the  tide,  rising  and  falling, 
decay  into  ornaments.  Hateful  things  are  trans- 
formed into  animated  beauty,  and  the  bird  that  falls 
dead  by  the  wood-side  or  the  water-side,  in  a  few  weeks 
is  transformed  into  flies,  every  one  burnished  with  love- 
liness, a  buzzing  and  animated  rainbow  in  God's  morn- 
ing sun.  In  the  material  world  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  death,  only  change,  as  day  and  night  change  to 
night  and  day  again.  Time  tinges  the  scarred  moun- 
tain-side with  beauty,  and  paints  every  rock  that  the 
ocean  leans  against  with  exquisite  colors  that  charm 
the  e^'e.  On  the  houses  of  the  city  in  a  fair  day,  and 
on  the  forms  of  men  and  beasts,  and  all  the  moving 
panorama  of  the  street,  there  falls  a  light  with  beauti- 
ful effect,  which  offers  to  the  hurrying  passenger  a 
spectacle  of  loveliness  which  varies  all  the  day  and 
educates  the  mortal  eye,  and  still  more,  teaches  what 
sits  behind  the  e^^e  and  looks  thence  on  the  world, 
filling  the  mind  with  cheap  and  tranquil  beauty.  Even 
in  the  town  Nature's  beauty  never  fails,  and  to  her 
favorites  she  sings  for  ever  as  she  flies,  by  night  or 
day. 


22   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

At  night,  how  pleasantly  comes  on  the  heavenly 
spring,  and  the  celestial  flowers  begin  to  blossom. 
First  come  those  larger  and  more  hardy,  which  put  out 
their  loveliness  and  fringe  the  day,  so  that  you  would 
not  know  at  first  if  they  were  the  autumnal  blossoms 
of  the  day  or  the  spring  blossoms  of  the  night.  Then 
the  more  delicate  posies  of  the  sky  come  out,  timid, 
trembling  with  loveliness,  and  ere  long  the  heavens  cel- 
ebrate a  White  Sunday,  and  blossom  all  over  with 
flowers ;  and  all  night  long  this  beauty  rains  its  sweet 
influence  down  upon  the  world,  a  dew  of  cooling  loveli- 
ness, a  charity  of  God  to  soothe  and  heal  and  bless. 
Boys  in  cities  look  up  from  the  noisy  street  at  the 
large  silent  faces  of  the  stars,  and  learn  to  fancy,  and 
to  wonder  too.  In  the  country  some  fair-cheeked  maid, 
bidding  her  lover  a  long-deferred  and  reluctant  and 
oft-repeated  "  Good-night,"  eyes  that  tranquil  miracle, 
and  as  his  steps  fade  from  her  ear  the  heavenly  beauty 
enters  to  her  soul,  and  over-gladdens  with  starry  de- 
light her  bosom's  throbbing  joy,  and  all  night  long 
she  dreams  her  tranquil  prophecy ;  —  she  and  her  lover 
both  are  stars,  and,  married  in  heaven  by  the  great 
God  himself,  journey  through  the  night, 

"Still  quiring  to  the  young-eyed  cherubim." 

The  early  marketer,  in  rough  garments,  riding 
through  the  darkness,  bringing  men's  bread  to  town, 
or  he  that  drives  heavy  oxen,  bringing  oxen's  food  to 

town, 

"  Still  by  the  vision  splendid 
Is  on  his  way  attended," 

and  cheers  the  weary  miles  with  such  companionship  as 
this.  The  mariner  on  the  Atlantic,  stemming  eastward, 
meets  the  darkness  which  spots  at  once  one  half  the 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  23 

globe,  and  with  many  an  upward  look  and  with  many  an 
inward  thought,  sails  through  the  night,  thinking  when 
some  bright  particular  star  will  stand  a  moment  over 
his  home,  and  look  down  on  his  new-born  baby, 
cradled  on  its  mother's  breast.  And  then  the  morning 
hastens  to  meet  it,  and  so  the  ring  of  darkness,  fringed 
with  beauty  at  its  descending  or  receding  edge,  moves 
slowly  round  the  world,  dotted  above  with  stars,  and 
chequered  below  with  more  romantic  dreams,  and  all 
night  long  these  stars  move  round  the  center  of  the 
world,  each  one  a  beauty  and  a  mystery,  and  all  night 
long  o'er  city  and  field  and  sea,  this  hanging  garden 
blooms  for  old  and  young,  and  rich  and  poor, 

"Out-blazoning  all  earth's  wealthy  Babylons." 

At  length  they  fade  away.  The  delicate  posies  of 
the  night  go  first,  and  only  a  few  great,  hardy,  ven- 
turesome stars  endure  the  near  approach  of  day,  their 
white  light  gleaming  through  the  morning  red.  Then 
they  too  pale  away  and  cease,  leaving  the  solitary  sun 
as  monarch  in  the  desert  sky. 

On  earth  men  cultivate  the  flower  of  flame.  The 
public  street  blossoms  all  night  through;  nay,  in  every 
house  all  day  men  keep  the  seed  of  fire,  shut  up  perhaps 
in  flint  or  steel  or  in  some  chemist's  drugs ;  but  as  the 
sun  withdraws  they  sow  the  spark,  and  with  vulgar 
tallow,  oil,  or  coal  or  wood,  rear  up  the  lovely  flower 
of  flame,  adorning  with  such  ornament  their  evening 
meal,  turning  its  beauty  to  use,  and  its  use  to  beauty 
too. 

In  all  these  things  the  eternal  beauty  of  the  world 
speaks  to  us.  Nay,  to  my  mind  they  are  windows 
wherethrough  I  look  into  the  purposes  of  the  eternal 
loving-kindness  and  tender  mercy.     Do  you  suppose 


24  THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

it  was  by  accident  that  God  thus  starred  the  earth 
and  sky  with  lovehness,  and  set  angels  in  the  sun, 
and  ordained  each  particular  star  as  an  evangelist  of 
beauty?  I  tell  you,  No!  But  in  these  hieroglyphs 
He  publishes  the  wisdom  and  the  friendliness  of  the 
Infinite. 

Men  sometimes  think  it  is  only  rich  men  and  lords 
and  kings  and  presidents  that  can  own  beauty.  It  is 
not  so.  I  own  all  the  beauty  of  the  stars.  Blue-eyed 
Lyra  is  mine;  mine  is  the  many-colored  morning;  and 
the  ring  which  marries  day  and  night,  its  beauty  is 
my  own ;  and  all  the  fair-shaped  loveliness  of  grass, 
and  root,  and  com,  and  leaf,  and  flower,  and  beast, 
and  bird,  and  tree, —  it  is  all  mine,  entailed  on  me  by 
the  great  God  before  creation.  Yet  my  possession 
bars  no  other  right.  It  is  a  philanthropic  God  who 
made  the  world, —  the  world  itself  a  commonwealth, 
and  all  its  beauty  democratic,  alms-giving  of  the  Al- 
mighty unto  your  heart  and  mine. 

THE  BEAUTY  OF  THE  WORLD  A  PROOF  OF  GOD'S 

LOVE 

The  forces  of  nature  are  indeed  wonderful.  The 
more  I  learn  thereof,  I  am  astonished  still  the  more, — 
at  the  forces  all  about  us,  which  build  up  the  moun- 
tains, which  frame  a  tree,  or  which  spread  out  into  the 
form  of  man ;  forces  agricultural,  chemical,  electrical, 
vital,  spiritual,  which  man  slowly  weaves  to  use  for 
great  purposes,  turning  nature  into  humanity.  But 
that  is  what  I  should  expect ;  I  see  that  all  this  is  neces- 
sary for  the  material  comfort  and  existence  of  the 
world.  But  the  abundance  of  beauty  in  the  world  is 
what  the  wisest  of  men  would  not  dare  look  for.  If 
you  go  to  a  farmer's  homestead,  you  expect  to  find 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  25 

what  belongs  to  his  craft, —  the  tools  wherewith  he 
catches  and  bridles  and  tames  nature,  directing  and 
spurring  the  ground  to  human  work.  In  his  where- 
abouts jou  look  for  oxen,  horses,  sheep,  swine,  for 
ploughs  and  scythes,  reaping  and  threshing  tools ;  you 
expect  com  in  his  granary,  hay  in  his  bam,  roots  in 
his  cellar,  seeds  laid  by  for  years  to  come ;  and  in 
his  wife's  department,  you  expect  household  articles, 
dairy  furniture,  the  smell  of  milk  and  new  butter. 
But  if  you  should  find  native  shrubs  set  round  his 
house,  blooming  in  aboriginal  loveliness,  as  new-Eng- 
land plants  will,  all  the  year  from  April  till  October; 
if  you  should  find  nicer  plants  set  under  his  window,  if 

"  The  j  asmine  clambers  in  flower  o'er  the  thatch. 
And  the  swallow  chirps  sweet  from  her  nest  in  the  wall," — 

you  would  say,  "  This  man  is  a  great  way  before  his 
neighbors,  the  wisest  in  his  hundred."  When  you  go 
in,  if,  in  addition  to  agricultural  and  political  newspa- 
pers and  farming  books  devoted  to  sober  use,  you 
should  find  a  basketful  of  other  books,  volumes  of 
poetry,  the  choicest  in  the  world, —  Homer,  ^schylus, 
Virgil,  Dante,  George  Herbert,  Shakespeare,  Milton, 
Bums,  Wordsworth,  Emerson, —  a  daint}^  garden 
wherein  the  other  beauty  of  God  flowered  in  perpetual 
spring,  and  whither  the  farmer  and  his  household  on 
Sundays,  or  on  other  days,  turned  in  and  freshened 
their  faces  with  such  encounter,  and  held  communion 
with  the  eternal  loveliness, —  why,  you  would  be  aston- 
ished, and  discover  that  this  man  is  of  kindred  to  the 
great  of  earth. 

Well,  to  me  the  world  is  just  such  a  farmer's  home- 
stead, and  the  surprise  of  beauty  is  a  perpetual  aston- 
ishment, showing  me  how  rich  is  God  in  His  motherly 


26  THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

loving-kindness  and  tender  mercy.  It  seems  as  if  the 
Divine  Love  could  never  do  enough  for  man.  He  sat- 
isfies the  body's  needs  with  bread,  clothing,  lodging, 
medicine ;  there  is  a  cradle  for  the  baby,  a  staff  for 
the  old  man ;  and  then  the  great  Father  flings  in  this 
wilderness  of  beauty  for  waking  men,  and  when 
slumber  overtakes  us  a  beauty  more  witching  yet 
watches  at  the  gates  of  the  imagination,  and  with 
beauty  God  blesses  His  beloved  even  in  their  sleep. 
Surely  there  is  a  great  Benefactor  somewhere.  And 
if  the  atheist  will  say  that  it  is  all  chance,  that  it  comes 
from  nothing,  and  means  nothing, —  why,  he  even 
must ;  at  least,  we  must  let  him.  And  if  the  popular 
theologians  say  it  comes  from  the  wrath  of  an  offended 
God,  we  must  let  them  also  have  their  way.  But  in 
all  this  I  see  the  loveliness  of  the  Infinite  Father  and 
Infinite  Mother.  Not  a  lichen  scars  the  rock,  not  a 
star  flames  in  the  sky,  but  it  tells  of  the  infinite  love- 
liness of  the  infinitely  loving  God. 

THE  ADAPTATION  OF  THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  TO 
THE  WANTS  OF  MAN 

It  is  very  plain  that  the  world  of  matter  has  always 
furnished  man  with  all  things  needed  at  the  time,  and 
is  so  made  that  it  is  continually  modified  by  man  to 
meet  all  his  progressive  wants.  The  savage  in  New 
England  wanted  a  forest  and  game,  a  wigwam  to  live 
in,  wood  for  his  bows  and  arrows,  acorns  for  his  bread ; 
and  the  world  furnished  him  with  these  things.  The 
Anglo-American,  a  civilized  man,  wants  a  mill,  roads 
of  iron,  glass  windows,  coal  fires,  gas,  a  telegraph, 
portraits  painted  by  the  sun ;  and  the  world  of  matter 
furnishes  these  things  just  as  readily  as  it  furnishes 
bear-skins    and    acorns    to    Uncas.     Once    man    only 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  27 

wanted  something  to  keep  his  feet  off  the  ground 
while  he  walked.  Nature  affords  that,  and  he  is  sat- 
isfied for  the  moment.  Next  he  wants  to  ride,  and 
not  walk.  Nature  gives  him  the  ox  and  the  ass. 
Then  man  wants  to  go  a  little  faster,  six  or  ten  miles 
an  hour.  Nature  says,  "  There  is  the  horse,  sir,  and 
the  camel ;  catch  as  catch  can."  Then  he  wants  a  horse 
that  will  go  forty  or  fifty  miles  an  hour.  And  Nature 
says,  "  There  is  steam,  my  dear  sir,  catch  that ;  there 
is  lightning,  put  that  in  harness ;  ride  fifty  or  a  hun- 
dred miles  if  you  will,  and  send  your  thought  as  fast 
as  you  please,  only  make  your  road  where  you  want 
to  go,  let  your  thought  lead  the  way,  and  the  lightning 
of  heaven  will  be  sure  to  follow."  Man  wants  to 
cipher.  A  smooth  stone  on  the  beach  helps  him  at 
first  to  calculate ;  then  there  are  the  diagrams  which 
God  has  written  above  our  heads,  and  mankind  studies 
the  magnificent  geometry  of  the  Almighty  God  in  the 
heavens,  which  were  the  great  ciphering-board  of 
Archimedes,  Newton,  Laplace,  and  Leverrier.  Thus 
the  outward  world  has  got  somewhere  everything  which 
everybody  needs  for  the  use,  enjoyment,  and  develop- 
ment of  all  his  faculties.  The  cupboard  of  Nature  is 
never  bare. 

man's  power  over  the  world  the  result  of 

WORK 

Man  feels  the  force  of  circumstances,  and  longs  for 
power  over  the  world.  First  he  asks  it  by  miracle,  of 
God,  and  tells  how  Moses  crossed  the  Red  Sea ;  then 
by  magic,  of  the  devil,  and  tells  how  witches  ride  a 
broom  from  Salem  to  Marblehead.  But  this  power  of 
man  comes  of  a  different  kind.  The  Golden  Age  is 
no  temptation  of  a  devil,  offering  bread  instead  of  a 


28  THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

stone ;  no  miraculous  gift  outright  from  God.  This 
power  over  matter  and  human  instinct,  this  power  to 
create  new  circumstances,  comes  by  work, —  work  of 
the  body,  work  of  the  mind.  Eden  is  not  behind  us ; 
Paradise  is  not  a  land  of  idleness  which  Adam  lost  by 
his  first  free  step.  It  is  before  us.  It  is  the  result 
of  toil;  and  that  toil  brings  with  it  opportunity  for 
the  use,  development,  and  enjoyment  of  every  faculty 
of  the  body,  every  power  of  the  mind.  A  poetic 
Hebrew  said  that  Moses  led  Israel  through  the  Red 
Sea  by  miracle.  Suppose  it  were  true ;  it  were  nothing 
in  comparison  with  the  English  Transportation  Com- 
pany, with  a  line  of  steamers  sailing  each  week  which 
carry  Egyptians,  Israelites,  men  of  all  nations,  and 
will  insure  any  man's  property  for  a  penny  in  the 
pound.  The  New  England  Puritan  told  how,  by 
magic,  a  witch  rode  from  Salem  to  Boston,  the  devil 
before,  and  she  behind,  on  the  crupper  of  a  broom ;  and 
he  looked  up  and  trembled,  and  wished  he  had  the 
power.  What  was  that  in  comparison  with  what  we 
see  every  day,  when,  not  a  witch,  but  lightning,  rides, 
not  the  crupper  of  a  broom,  but  a  permanent  wire, 
from  Boston  to  New  York,  or  where  you  will,  and  when 
it  is  not  the  devil,  but  a  scientific  man  who  postilions 
the  thought  across  the  air?  What,  I  say,  is  miracle, 
what  is  magic,  what  are  the  dreams  of  miracle,  the 
superstitions  of  magic,  in  comparison  with  the  results 
of  plain  work  which  God  puts  in  our  power.''  Ask  a 
miracle  of  God, —  and  there  is  no  answer.  The  world 
is  the  answer,  and  it  lies  before  us.  Ask  magic  of  the 
devil, —  there  is  none  that  moves  the  wind.  Ask  the 
result  by  thought  and  work,  and  the  result  comes. 

Man  wants  a  farm,  and  he  asks  for  it,  "  Lord,  give 
me  a  farm,"  in  his  prayer.     Says  the  Father,  "  There 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  29 

is  land  and  water;  make  jour  farm  just  as  you  like  it. 
Is  not  the  soil  rich  enough?  There  is  sea-weed  on  the 
shore,  lime  at  Thomaston,  guano  at  the  Lobos  Islands ; 
make  it  as  rich  as  you.  like."  Man  wants  summer  roses 
in  the  winter  hour ;  and  the  Lord  says,  "  Rear  them 
just  as  you  will."  He  wants  ships,  and  the  Lord  sends 
him  to  the  mountain  and  mine,  and  under  his  plastic 
hand  the  mast  grows  in  the  valley,  and  the  hemp-field 
blossoms  with  sail-cloth.  He  wants  a  factory,  and  the 
Merrimac  is  ready  to  turn  his  wheels;  wants  schools, 
colleges,  lyceums,  libraries,  and  the  Infinite  God  says 
to  him,  "  My  little  child,  for  these  there  are  the  ma- 
terial means  under  your  hand ;  there  are  the  human 
means  over  your  shoulders.  Use  them,  make  what  you 
like."  If  the  man  learns,  Joy  plucks  a  rose  by  every 
pathway,  and  puts  it  in  his  bosom.  If  he  learns  not. 
Want  cuts  a  birch  in  every  hedge-row,  and  the  idle  fool 
is  whipped  to  school. 

At  this  day  the  men  of  foremost  religious  develop- 
ment are  the  idealizing  power  of  the  human  race,  that 
family  of  prophets  which  never  dies  out.  They  have 
the  ideal  of  a  better  state  of  things,  a  family  of  equals, 
a  community  without  want,  without  ignorance,  with- 
out crime,  a  Church  of  righteousness,  and  a  State  where 
the  intuitions  of  conscience  have  been  codified  into 
statutes.  These  things  are  all  possible,  just  as  possible 
as  the  farm,  the  shop,  the  factory,  and  the  school. 
Desire  only  points  to  the  reserve  of  power  that  one 
day  shall  satisfy  it. 

There  are  two  little  birds  fluttering  about  the  human 
family.  One  is  /  have;  the  other  is  Oh,  had  I.  One 
is  the  bird  in  the  hand;  the  other  is  the  bird  in  the 
bush,  which  is  worth  two  of  the  bird  in  the  hand.  The 
highest  function  of  /  have  is  to  lay  the  egg,  whence 


30   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

comes  forth  the  fairer  and  lovelier  bird  Oh,  had  I. 
She  flies  off  to  the  bush,  and  we  journey  thither,  find- 
ing new  treasures  at  every  step.  We  see  the  ideal 
good.  The  child  cries  for  it ;  the  child-boy  cries  to 
his  mother,  the  child-man  cries  to  his  God,  both  clamor- 
ing for  the  result.  But  the  wise  God  does  not  give  it 
outright.  He  says  to  the  child-man,  "  Pay  for  it,  and 
take  it.  Earn  your  breakfast  before  you  eat  it,  and 
then  take  what  you  like.  Desire  the  end,  do  you,  my 
little  man?  Desire  the  means  to  it,  and  then  you  shall 
have  it.  There  is  a  reserved  power  in  matter,  another 
in  man.  Build  your  family,  church,  and  state  just  as 
beautiful  as  you  like.  All  things  are  possible  to  him 
that  believeth.  Build  and  be  blessed.  Lo,  I  am  with 
you  to  the  end  of  the  world !  " 

THE  EFFECT  OF  POWER  IN  THE  MATERIAL  WORLD 
UPON  THE  MIND  OF  MAN 

Alexander  Von  Humboldt  —  the  ministers  call  him 
an  atheist  —  says,  "  We  find  even  amongst  the  most 
savage  nations  a  certain  vague,  terror-stricken  sense 
of  the  all-powerful  unity  of  the  natural  forces  with 
the  existence  of  an  invisible  spiritual  essence  manifested 
in  those  forces ;  and  we  may  trace  here  the  relation  of 
a  band  of  union  linking  together  the  visible  world  and 
that  higher  spiritual  world  which  escapes  the  grasp 
of  the  senses." 

The  general  aspect  of  nature,  with  its  vast  power 
and  constant  law,  has  a  direct  influence  to  waken  rev- 
erence and  something  of  awe.  The  sublimity  of  the 
ocean,  the  grandeur  of  the  mountain,  the  wide  plain 
and  great  river,  fill  all  thoughtful  men  with  vague, 
dreamy  longings  toward  the  great  Cause  and  Provi- 
dence which  creates  them  all,  and  fills  them  all  with 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  31 

wondrous  life.  So  the  thought  of  the  great  trees,  the 
wide-spread  forest,  house  and  home  to  such  worlds  of 
life,  the  bright  wild  flower,  the  common  grass  and 
grain,  food  for  beast  and  man, —  wakens  religious 
emotions  in  the  best  and  worst  of  us  all.  Still  more, 
perhaps,  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  come  home  to  our 
consciousness  and  stir  the  feelings.  Infinite  nature 
speaks  thus  to  all  men,  in  all  lands,  in  every  stage  of 
culture,  highest  and  humblest.  This  is  the  reason  why 
the  rude  man  worships  the  objects  of  nature  first,  and 
makes  gods  of  them ;  this  is  the  rude  beginning  of 
mankind's  outward  religion,  which  represents  the  inner- 
most facts  of  religious  consciousness.  These  poor  ma- 
terial things  are  the  lowly  rounds  in  the  ladder  which 
mankind  travels  on,  till  we  come  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
Infinite  God,  who  transcends  all  form,  all  space,  all 
time.  The  great  and  unusual  phenomena  of  nature 
affect  the  religious  feelings  with  exceeding  power,  such 
as  an  eclipse  of  the  sun  or  moon,  the  appearance  of 
comets,  that  "  from  their  horrid  hair  shake  pestilence 
and  war,"  an  earthquake,  a  storm,  thunder  and  light- 
ning. To  you  and  me  these  things  are  not  trouble- 
some, but  to  the  wild  man,  the  savage,  or  the  half 
civilized,  they  bring  great  fear  and  dread,  and  thereby 
waken  the  religious  feeling,  which  thence  slowl}^  tends 
on  to  its  ultimate  work  of  peace  and  joy  and  love. 
This  terror  before  the  violence  of  nature  is  exceedingly 
valuable  to  the  savage  man,  and  it  plays  the  same  part 
in  the  history  of  his  religion  that  want  has  played  in 
the  history  of  his  toil  and  thought.  It  directs  faculty 
to  its  function.  Once  nothing  but  hunger  and  fear 
would  make  man  toil  and  think ;  then  in  his  rudeness, 
nothing  but  the  violent  aspect  of  the  world  would  rouse 
his   soul   from   its    savage   lethargy ;   then    storm    and 


32   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

earthquake,  thunder  and  lightning,  were  the  prophets 
which  spake  to  man.  To  the  rude  the  teacher  must 
also  be  rude.  But  this  fear  tormenting  man  so,  he 
presently  goes  and  studies  nature,  to  see  if  there  be 
cause  for  fear,  and  the  knowledge  which  he  gains 
thereby  is  real  joy. 

Well  did  a  great  Roman  poet,  two  thousand  years 
ago  —  copying  a  greater  poet,  whose  reason  surpassed 
even  his  mighty  imagination  —  say,  "  Happy  is  he 
who  can  understand  the  true  causes  of  things,  and 
tramples  underneath  his  feet  all  fear,  inexorable  fate, 
and  the  roar  of  angry  hell."  At  length  men  find  that 
the  eclipse  or  the  comet  was  not  harmful,  that  the 
storm  came  not  in  wrath,  that  the  earthquake  tells 
nothing  of  an  angry  God,  only  of  a  globe  not  finished 
yet,  that  the  thunder  and  lightning  are  beneficent,  that 
the  powers  of  the  earth,  the  round  ocean,  and  the 
living  air  are  full  of  love.  The  law  of  nature  leads 
men  to  behold  the  Law-giver,  and  the  benevolence 
which  he  finds  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases  makes  him 
certain  he  shall  find  it  when  he  understands  those  cases 
which  he  knows  not  yet.  He  goes  from  "  nature  up 
to  nature's  God,"  and  when  he  knows  the  earth,  its  air, 
water,  land,  its  powers  of  motion,  vegetation,  anima- 
tion, knows  the  solar  system,  which  maintains  for  earth 
its  place,  knows  the  astral  system,  which  furnishes 
earth  its  spot,  when  he  looks  on  the  unresolved  nebula, 
which  may  perhaps  be  another  astral  system,  so  far 
away  that  it  looks  like  dust  of  stars  scattered  in  some 
corner  of  the  sky, —  then  does  his  soul  run  over  for 
that  dear  God  who  established  such  relation  between 
the  cosmic  universe  and  the  astral  system,  between  that 
and  the  solar  system,  between  that  and  the  earth,  be- 
tween the  earth  and  his  body  and  spirit,  his  mind  and 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  33 

conscience,  heart  and  soul,  and  then  he  turns  and  loves 
that  God  with  all  his  understanding,  with  all  his  heart 
and  strength ;  nature  from  without  leagues  with  spirit 
from  within,  and  constrains  him  thus. 

THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AS  AFFECTING  THE 
IMAGINATION 

The  world  of  matter  affects  the  imagination:  it 
offers  us  beauty.  How  beautiful  are  the  common 
things  about  us  !     The  trees, 

"  Their  bole  and  branch,  their  lesser  boughs  and  spray. 
Now  leafless,  pencill'd  on  the  wintry  sky  " — 

or  the  summer  trees,  with  their  leaves  and  flowers,  or 
their  autumnal  jewels  of  fruit, —  how  fair  they  are! 
Look  at  the  grasses,  whereon  so  many  cattle  feed,  at 
the  grains,  which  are  man's  bread,  and  note  their 
beautiful  color  and  attractive  shape.  Walnuts,  apples, 
grapes,  the  peach,  the  pear,  cherries,  plums,  cranber- 
ries from  the  meadow,  chestnuts  from  the  wood, —  how 
beautiful  is  all  the  family,  bearing  their  recommenda- 
tion in  their  very  face !  The  commonest  vegetables, 
cabbages,  potatoes,  onions,  crooked  squashes,  have  a 
certain  homely  beauty,  which  to  man  is  grace  before 
his  meat.  Nothing  common  is  unclean.  Then  there 
is  the  sun  all  day,  the  light  shifting  clouds,  which  the 
winds  pile  into  such  curious  forms,  all  night  the  stars, 
the  moon  walking  in  brightness  through  the  sky, —  and 
how  beautiful  these  things  are !  Then  what  heavenly 
splendor  waits  for  and  ushers  in  the  day,  and  attends 
his  departure  when  his  work  is  done.  How  our  eye 
cradles  itself  in  every  handsome  rose, —  and  all  the 
earth  blossoms  once  each  year. 

How  shape  and  color  fit  our  fancy,  and  stars  so  far 
XI— 3 


3-i      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

off  that  their  distance  is  inconceivable  impinge  their 
beautiful  light  on  every  opening  eye.  What  delight 
these  things  give  us  —  a  joy  above  that  of  mere  use! 
Even  the  rudest  boy  in  Cove  Street  looks  up  at  the 
stars,  and  learns  to  wonder  and  rejoice,  and  is  inly 
fed.  Set  him  down  on  the  seashore  next  summer,  and 
how  the  beauty  of  its  sight  and  sound  will  steal  into 
his  rude,  untutored  heart,  as  the  long  waves  roll  to- 
ward the  land,  comb  over  and  break  with  "  the  ocean 
wave's  immeasurable  laugh!"  With  what  joy  will  he 
gather  up  the  refuse  which  the  sea  casts  upon  the 
shore,  the  bright-colored  weeds,  the  curiously-twisted 
shells,  the  nicely-colored  pebbles,  worn  into  so  fair  and 
elliptical  a  shape  and  polished  off  so  smooth.  Thus 
material  nature  comes  close  to  the  imagination  of  man, 
even  in  the  rudest  child.  No  North  American  savage 
but  felt  his  heart  leap  at  the  bright  sparkling  water 
of  the  river,  or  the  sunny  lake,  or  the  sublimity  of  the 
New  Hampshire  mountains ;  and  in  the  names  which 
he  left  there,  has  he  set  up  his  monument  of  the  inti- 
mate relation  between  his  imagination  and  the  world  of 
matter,  which  he  felt  and  recognized.  This  passing 
delight  in  nature's  beauty  helps  to  refine  and  elevate 
all  men.  The  boy  who  puts  a  dandelion  in  his  button- 
hole, the  girl  who  stains  her  cheek  with  wild  straw- 
berries in  June  —  seeking  not  only  to  satisfy  her 
mouth  with  their  sweetness,  but  to  ornament  her  face 
with  their  beauty, —  are  both  flying  upward  on  these 
handsome  wings. 

But  man  is  so  in  love  with  the  transient  beauty  of 
nature  that  he  captures  it  and  seeks  to  hold  it  forever. 
He  puts  the  sound  of  nature  into  music,  which  he  re- 
cords in  the  human  voice  or  in  wooden  or  metallic 
instruments ;  he   paints   and   carves   out   loveliness   on 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  35 

canvas  and  In  wood  and  stone.  Patriarchal  Jacob  is 
in  love  with  the  rainbow,  and  so  puts  its  colors  into 
Joseph's  coat  to  keep  nature's  beauty,  while  he  also 
clothes  Rachel's  first-born  and  longed-for  boy. 
Thought  commands  toil,  and  bids  it  preserve  the  pre- 
cious but  precarious  beauty  which  the  world  of  matter 
so  lavishly  spreads  out  on  earth  in  flowers,  or  scatters 
over  the  "  spangled  heavens  "  in  stars.  Man  is  up- 
lifted and  made  better  by  this  effort.  When  you  find 
an  Ojibbeway  Indian  with  one  stone  copying  the  form 
of  a  blackbird  upon  another,  depend  upon  it  he  is 
setting  up  a  guide-board  whose  finger  points  upward 
to  civilization,  and  the  tribe  of  Ojibbeways  will  travel 
that  way.  Thus  closely  following  the  male  arts  of 
use  come  the  feminine  arts  of  beaut}", —  painting, 
sculpture,  architecture,  music  and  poetry.  "  They 
weave  and  twine  the  heavenly  roses  in  earthly  life ; 
they  knit  the  bond  of  love  which  makes  us  blest,  and 
in  the  chaste  veil  of  the  Graces,  watchful,  with  holy 
hand,  they  cherish  the  eternal  fire  of  delicate  feelings." 
So  nice  is  the  relation  between  the  world  of  matter  and 
man's  imagination  that  beauty,  which  is  our  nes;t  of 
kin  on  the  material  side,  helps  us  up  continually,  takes 
us  to  school,  softens  our  manners,  and  will  not  suffer 
them  to  be  wild.  The  first  house  man  ever  entered  was 
a  hole  in  the  rock,  and  the  first  he  ever  built  was  a 
burrow  scooped  out  of  the  ground :  look  at  your  dwell- 
ings now,  at  the  Crystal  Palace,  the  Senate  House  at 
Washington,  at  these  fair  walls,  so  grateful  to  the 
eye,  so  welcome  to  the  voice  of  man !  Man's  first  dress, 
what  a  scant  and  homely  patch  it  was !  Look  at  the 
ornamented  fabrics  which  clothe  Adam  and  Eve  to- 
day, in  such  glory  as  Solomon  never  put  on !  Con- 
sider the  art  of  music,  which  condenses  all  nature's 


36   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

sweet  sounds !  Man's  first  voice  was  a  cry ;  to-day  that 
wild  shriek  is  an  anthem  of  melody,  a  chain  of  "  linked 
sweetness  long  drawn  out."  Consider  the  art  of  the 
painter  and  the  sculptor,  who  in  superficial  colors,  or 
in  solid  metal  or  stone,  preserve  some  noble  countenance 
for  many  an  age,  and  a  thousand  years  hence  eyes  not 
opened  now  shall  look  thereon,  and  be  strengthened 
and  gladdened.  From  this  intimate  relation  of  the 
world  of  matter  to  man's  imagination  come  the  great 
sculptors,  painters,  architects,  and  musicians,  yea  the 
great  poets,  Shakespeare,  Milton,  and  their  fair  broth- 
erhood and  sisterhood  of  congenial  souls, —  softening 
the  manners  of  man,  and  inspiring  his  heart,  all  round 
the  many-peopled  globe. 

Now  see  on  how  nice  an  arrangement  this  relation 
rests.  Matter  furnishes  food,  shelter,  medicine,  tools ; 
and  the  pursuit  of  these  educates  the  understanding, 
which  man  did  not  ask  for,  and  wisdom  which  he  did 
not  hope  to  have  is  thereby  thrown  in.  There  is 
beauty  also;  it  is  food  for  the  imagination,  shelter, 
medicine,  and  tools  for  subtler  needs.  This  gives  also 
a  higher  education  to  a  nobler  faculty.  Beauty  does 
not  seem  requisite  to  the  understanding  alone,  it  is 
not  valuable  to  man's  mere  body,  certainly  it  does  not 
seem  necessary  to  the  world  of  matter  itself;  but  it  is 
requisite  for  the  imagination,  and  this  thread  of 
beauty,  whose  shape  and  color  so  witches  us,  runs 
through  all  the  cosmic  web ;  it  is  tied  in  with  the  subtle 
laws  of  animation,  vegetation,  motion ;  it  is  woven  up 
with  attraction,  affinity,  heat,  light,  electricity;  it  is 
connected  into  the  disposition  of  the  three  great  parts 
of  the  earth,  air,  water,  land,  complicated  with  the 
subtle  chemical  character  of  each;  it  depends  on  the 
structural  form  of  the  earth,  that  on  the  solar  system 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  37 

itself.  So  when  you  rejoice  in  a  musical  sound,  in 
the  sight  of  flowers,  in  the  bloom  on  a  maiden's  cheek, 
when  you  look  at  a  charcoal  sketch  or  a  bronze  statue, 
when  you  read  a  drama  of  Shakespeare,  or  listen  to  an 
essay  of  Emerson, —  then  remember  that  the  relation 
between  matter  and  mind  which  made  these  things 
possible,  depends  on  the  structure  of  the  solar  system, 
and  was  provided  for  millions  of  millions  of  years  be- 
fore there  was  a  man-child  born  into  the  world. 

SPRING 

How  mighty  are  the  forces  in  the  world  of  matter, — 
attraction,  affinity,  light,  heat,  electricity,  vegetation, 
the  growth  of  plants,  animation,  the  life  of  beast,  bird, 
reptile,  insect !  Yet  how  delicate  are  the  results 
thereof!  It  seems  strange  that  a  butterfly's  wing 
should  be  woven  up  so  thin  and  gauzy  in  this  monstrous 
loom  of  nature,  and  be  so  delicately  tipped  with  fire 
from  such  a  gross  hand,  and  rainbowed  all  over  in 
such  a  storm  of  thunderous  elements.  But  so  it  is. 
Put  a  little  atom  of  your  butterfly's  wing  under  a 
microscope,  and  what  delicate  wonders  do  you  find ! 
The  marvel  is  that  such  great  forces  do  such  nice  work. 
A  thoughtful  man  for  the  first  time  goes  to  some 
carpet  factory  in  Lowell.  He  looks  out  of  the  win- 
dow, and  sees  dirty  bales  of  wool  l3"ing  confusedly 
about,  as  they  were  dropped  from  the  carts  that 
brought  them  there.  Close  at  hand  is  the  Merrimac 
River,  one  end  of  it  pressed  against  the  New  Hamp- 
shire mountains  and  the  sky  far  off*,  while  the  other 
crowds  upon  the  mill-dam,  and  is  pouring  through  its 
narrow  gate.  Under  the  factory  it  drives  the  huge 
wheel,  whose  turning  keeps  the  whole  town  ajar  all 
day.     Above  is  the  great  bell  which  rings  the  river 


38   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

to  its  work.  Before  him  are  pulleys  and  shafts ;  the 
floor  is  thick-set  with  looms ;  there  are  rolls  of  various- 
colored  woolen  yam,  bits  of  card  pierced  with  holes 
hang  before  the  weaver,  who  now  pulls  a  handle,  and 
the  shuttles  fly,  wedding  the  woof  to  the  expectant 
warp,  and  the  handsome  fabric  is  slowly  woven  up  and 
rolled  away.  The  thoughtful  man  wonders  at  the 
contrivance  by  which  the  Merrimac  River  is  made  to 
weave  such  coarse  materials  into  such  beauty  of  form, 
color,  and  finish.  What  a  marvel  of  machinery  it  is ! 
None  of  the  weavers  quite  understand  it ;  our  visitor 
still  less.  He  goes  off  wondering,  thinking  what  a 
head  it  must  be  which  planned  the  mill,  a  tool  by 
which  the  Merrimac  transfigures  wool  and  dye  stuff 
into  handsome  carpets,  serviceable  for  chamber,  parlor, 
staircase,  or  meeting-house. 

But  all  day,  you  and  I,  President  Buchanan,  the 
American  Tract  Society,  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  all  the  people  in  the  world,  are  in  a 
carpet  factory  far  more  wonderful.  What  vast  forces 
therein  spin  and  weave  continually !  What  is  the 
Merrimac,  which  only  reaches  from  the  New  Hamp- 
shire mountains  to  the  sea,  compared  to  that  great 
river  of  God  on  whose  breast  the  earth,  the  sun,  the 
solar  system,  yea,  the  astral  system,  are  but  bubbles, 
which  gleam,  many-colored,  for  a  moment,  or  but 
dimple  that  stream,  and  which  swiftly  it  whirls  away.^* 
What  is  the  fabric  of  a  Lowell  mill  to  that  carpet 
which  God  lays  on  the  floor  of  the  earth,  from  the 
Arctic  Circle  to  the  Antarctic,  or  yet  also  spreads  on 
the  bottom  of  the  monstrous  sea.''  It  is  trod  under 
foot  by  all  mankind ;  the  elephant  walks  on  it,  and  the 
royal  tiger.  What  multitudes  of  sheep,  swine,  and 
horned  cattle  lie  down  there,  and  take  their  rest ;  what 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  39 

tribes  of  beasts,  insects,  reptiles,  birds,  fishes,  make 
a  home  therein,  or  feed  thereon.  Moths  do  not  eat 
away  this  floor-cloth  of  the  land  and  sea.  The  snow 
lies  on  it,  the  sun  lurks  there  in  summer,  the  rain  wets 
it  all  the  year ;  yet  it  never  wears  out ;  it  is  dyed  in 
fast  colors.  Now  and  then  the  feet  of  armies  in  their 
battle  wear  a  little  hole  in  this  green  carpet,  but  next 
year  a  handsome  piece  of  botanic  rug-work  covers 
up  the  wear  and  tear  of  Sebastopol  and  Dellii,  as  of 
old  it  repaired  the  waste  of  Marathon  and  Trasimenus. 
Look,  and  you  see  no  weaver,  no  loom  visible ;  but  the 
web  is  always  there,  on  the  ground  and  underneath 
the  sea.  The  same  clothier  likewise  keeps  the  live 
world  tidy  and  in  good  trim.  How  all  the  fishes  are 
dressed  out, —  those  glittering  in  plate  armor,  these 
only  arrayed  in  their  vari-colored  jerkins,  such  as  no 
Moorish  artist  could  paint.  How  well  clad  are  the 
insects ;  with  what  suits  of  mail  are  the  beetle  and  bee 
and  ant  furnished.  The  coat  of  the  buffalo  never 
pinches  under  the  arm,  never  puckers  at  the  shoulder; 
it  is  always  the  same,  yet  never  old-fashioned,  nor  out 
of  date.  The  shoes  of  the  reindeer  and  the  ox  inherit 
that  mythical  Hebrew  blessing  pronounced  on  those 
of  the  Israelites ;  they  wax  not  old  upon  their  feet. 
The  pigeon  and  humming-bird  wear  their  court-dress 
every  day,  and  yet  it  never  looks  rusty  nor  threadbare. 
In  this  grand  clothiery  of  the  world  everything  is 
clad  in  more  beauty  than  many-colored  Joseph  or 
imperial  Solomon  ever  put  on,  yet  nobody  ever  sees 
the  wheel,  the  loom,  or  the  sewing  machine  of  this 
great  Dorcas  Institution  which  carpets  the  earth  and 
upholsters  the  heavens,  and  clothes  the  creatures  of 
the  world  with  more  imperial  glory  than  the  Queen  of 
Sheba  ever  fancied  in  her  dream   of  dress   and  love. 


40   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

How  old  is  the  world  of  matter, —  many  a  million 
years,  yet  it  is  to-day  still  fresh  and  young  as  when 
the  morning  stars  first  sang  together,  and  all  the 
sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy.  Not  a  power  of  the 
earth  has  decayed.     The  sea, 

"  Such  as  creation's  dawn  beheld,  it  rolleth  now." 

The  stars  have  been  watching  many  a  million  years ; 
yet  in  all  that  heavenly  host  not  a  single  eye  has  turned 
dim.  The  sun  has  lost  nothing  of  his  fire.  Never 
old,  the  moon  still  walks  in  maiden  beauty  through 
the  sky,  and  though  men  and  nations  vanish,  "  the 
most  ancient  heavens  are  fresh  and  strong."  Centri- 
petal and  Centrifugal  are  the  two  horses  of  God  that 
make  up  the  wondrous  span  that  draws  the  heavenly 
chariot ;  they  are  always  on  the  road,  yet  never  cast  a 
shoe ;  and  though  they  have  j  oumeyed  for  many  a 
million  years,  are  to-day  fresh  and  fleet  and  road- 
ready,  as  when  first  they  drew  Neptune,  the  earliest 
bom  of  this  family  of  planets,  in  his  wide  orbit  round 
the  central  sun.  How  old  the  world  is ;  yet  well-clad, 
and  its  garments  as  fresh  as  if  they  were  new,  spick 
and  span,  in  every  thread. 

What  a  revival  of  nature  is  just  now  going  on  in 
all  Europe,  Asia,  North  America,  and  the  Islands 
which  dot  the  frozen  sea  with  green.  To  the  arctic 
world,  which  for  months  sat  in  darkness,  exceeding 
great  light  has  come.  Truly  here  is  the  outpouring 
of  the  Spirit  of  God!  Yet  nobody  preached  the 
reasonableness  of  eternal  damnation  to  the  alewives, 
the  shad  and  the  salmon,  which  now  abound  in  our 
waters ;  but  with  no  minister  to  scare  them  they  know 
what  they  shall  do  to  be  saved,  for  the  Spirit  of  God 
comes  into  these  mute  disciples,  who  crowd  up  the  little 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  41 

streams,  float  into  the  ponds,  and  spread  in  the  great 
streams,  and  there  drop,  as  an  offering,  into  the  temple- 
chest  of  the  Almighty,  all  that  they  have,  even  their 
living,  and  then,  Hke  the  poor  widow  in  the  New 
Testament  story,  pass  out  of  human  sight,  swallowed 
up  in  that  great  sea  of  oblivion  where  man  beholds 
nothing,  but  where  God  never  loses  sight  of  an  ale- 
wife,  having  provided  for  its  existence  and  the  acci- 
dents of  its  history  from  before  the  foundations  of  the 
world.  From  His  eye  neither  the  great  sun  in  heaven 
nor  the  spawn  of  an  alewife  in  the  sea  is  ever  for  a 
moment  lost  or  hid.  What  new  life  is  there  in  the  air, 
which  hums  with  little  insects  new-born,  short-lived, 
yet  not  one  of  them  afraid  to  die.  Why  should  it 
be.''  The  Infinite  Mind,  which  is  Cause  and  Providence 
to  all  things  that  be,  knows  the  little  track  of  an 
ephemeron  as  well  as  the  calculated  orbit  of  this  world, 
which  teams  its  thousand  million  men  from  age  to  age 
along  its  well-proportioned  path.  "  Fear  not,  little 
flock  of  ephemera,"  God  says  to  them,  "  lo,  I  am  with 
you  also  to  the  end  of  the  world.  Not  a  fly  shall  fall 
to  the  ground  without  my  providence."  In  some 
warm  spring  day,  in  the  shallow  waters  of  a  sluggish 
river,  there  sports  a  shoal  of  little  fishes,  new-bom, 
trying  their  tiny  fins  in  waters  which  are  at  once  their 
bed  and  board.  Suddenly  a  swarm  of  little  insects, 
just  waked  into  new  life  by  the  sun,  springs  from  the 
bank  and  darkens  the  surface  of  the  water,  for  a  yard 
or  two,  with  a  cloud.  The  fishes  which  play  there 
spring  into  the  air,  and  in  a  few  minutes  all  this  cloud 
of  flies  has  been  swallowed  down.  But  the  fly  was  born 
with  his  children  cradled  in  his  body,  and  in  the  bosom 
of  the  fish  itself  this  new  generation  finds  its  garden  of 
Eden,  where  it  eats,  if  not  from  the  tree  of  knowledge, 


42   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

at  least  the  tree  of  life.  So  while  the  new-born 
ephemera  give  the  new-born  fish  a  breakfast,  the  eater 
unconsciously  adopts  the  children  of  the  fly,  nurses 
them  in  his  body,  and  when  they  are  grown  to  their 
majority,  sets  free  these  creatures,  which  had  so 
strange  a  birth  and  bringing  up  in  this  little  floating 
college  of  a  country  brook.  Does  God  take  care  for 
oxen  ?  asks  St  Paul.  Ay,  as  well  as  for  man,  and  sends 
His  apostles  to  these  little  creatures  whose  life  is  so 
brief.  The  perpetuation  of  their  race  is  provided  for, 
and  they  have  organs  which  take  hold  on  eternity. 
Truly  the  Infinite  God  is  fatherly  providence  to  the 
little  fly  born  in  a  spring  day,  and  perishing  in  an 
hour  after  it  sees  the  light. 

What  wonders  of  nature  go  on  all  around  us  to- 
day !  From  the  top  of  some  tall  house,  look  on  the 
fair  mantle  which  Nature  has  just  cast  on  all  the  hills 
about  us,  and  which  falls  with  such  handsome  folds 
into  every  valley.  Go  into  any  one  of  the  towns  near 
at  hand,  and  see  what  there  takes  place.  There  is  not 
an  apple-tree  but  has  put  its  wedding  garments  on. 
The  elm  has  half  ripened  its  fruit ;  the  maple  is  mak- 
ing provision  for  whole  forests  of  future  j  oy ;  while 
the  trees  which  the  farmer  plants  for  profitable  use, 
and  not  for  beauty,  are  white  with  the  oracles  of 
prophecy.  It  is  a  revival  of  nature,  whereof  the  Sun 
is  the  evangelical  preacher.  No  city  government 
warns  him  off^  from  the  Common,  for  he  preaches  the 
everlasting  gospel  of  the  blessed  God,  wherewith  he 
rejoices  both  old  and  young.  There  is  no  heresy  in 
that.  All  nature  hears  him,  and  expounds  his  word 
of  life.  The  silent  fishes  plentifully  obey  the  first  of 
God's  commands,  the  tuneful  birds  repeat  their  litany, 
chanting  their  morning   and   evening  psalm ;   all   the 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  43 

trees  put  on  their  bridal  garments, —  these  candidates 
for  the  divine  communion,  who  have  come  to  take  part 
in  this  great  Epiphany,  the  natural  manifestation  of 
God  to  these  Gentiles  of  the  field  and  wood.  They 
also  share  the  Pentecost  of  the  year,  and  celebrate 
their  thanksgiving  with  such  abundance  as  they  can  or 
know.  What  a  Pentecost  of  new  life  is  there !  Ev- 
ery bush  bums  and  is  not  consumed;  yea,  greatens 
and  multiplies  in  its  bloom  and  blossom,  and  the  ground 
seems  holy  with  new  revelation ;  it  is  a  White  Sunday 
all  round  the  town.  How  grand  and  vigorous  the 
new  blade  comes  out  from  the  earth ;  and  ere  long  these 
will  be  sheaves,  and  oxen  will  laboriously  drag  home 
the  farmer's  load  of  grain,  which  in  due  time  will  be 
changed  to  other  oxen,  and  then  likewise  to  farmers 
too,  and  so  be  resurrected  in  his  sons  and  daughters. 
What  a  marvelous  transfiguration  is  that !  first  the 
seed,  then  the  plant,  then  the  harvest,  next  bread,  and 
at  length  Moses,  Elias,  Jesus !  No  Hebrew  writer  of 
legend  could  ever  finish  half  so  fair  a  miracle  as  this, 
wherein  is  no  miracle,  but  constant  law  at  every  step. 
Last  autumn  in  some  of  the  pastures  fire  ran  along 
the  wall,  and  left  the  ground  black  with  its  ephemeral 
charcoal,  where  now  the  little  wind-flower  lifts  its  deli- 
cate form  and  bends  its  slender  neck,  and  blushes  with 
its  own  beauty,  gathered  from  the  black  ground  out 
of  which  it  grew ;  or  some  trillium  opens  its  painted 
cup,  and  in  due  time  will  show  its  finiit,  a  beautiful 
berry  there.  So  out  of  human  soil,  blackened  by 
another  fire  which  has  swept  over  it,  in  due  time  great 
flowers  will  come  out  in  the  form  of  spiritual  beauty 
not  yet  seen,  and  other  fruit  grow  there,  whose  seed 
is  in  itself,  and  which  had  not  ripened  but  out  of  that 
black  ground.     Thus  the  lilies  of  peace  cover  the  ter- 


44   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

rible  field  of  Waterloo,  and  out  of  the  grave  of  our 
dear  ones  there  spring  up  such  flowers  of  spiritual 
loveliness  as  you  and  I  else  had  never  known.  It  is 
not  from  the  tall,  crowded  warehouse  of  prosperity 
that  men  first  or  clearest  see  the  eternal  stars  of 
heaven.  It  is  often  from  the  humble  spot  where  we 
have  laid  down  our  dear  ones  that  we  find  our  best 
observatory,  which  gives  us  glimpses  into  the  far-off 
world  of  never-ending  time. 

In  the  hard,  cold  winter  of  our  northern  lands,  how 
do  we  feel  a  longing  for  the  presence  of  life.  Then 
we  love  to  look  on  a  pine  or  fir  tree,  which  seems  the 
only  living  thing  in  the  woods,  surrounded  by  dead 
oaks,  birches,  maples,  looking  like  the  grave-stones  of 
buried  vegetation :  that  seems  warm  and  living  then ; 
and  at  Christmas  men  bring  it  into  meeting-houses  and 
parlors,  and  set  it  up,  full  of  life,  and  laden  with 
kindl}""  gifts  for  the  little  folk.  Then  even  the  unat- 
tractive crow  seems  half  sacred,  through  the  winter 
bearing  messages  of  promise  from  the  perished  autumn 
to  the  advancing  spring, —  this  dark  forerunner  of 
the  tuneful  tribes  which  are  to  come.  We  feel  a  long- 
ing for  fresh  green  nature,  and  so  in  the  shelter  of 
our  houses  keep  some  little  Aaron's  rod,  budding  alike 
with  promise  and  memory ;  or  in  some  hyacinth  or 
Dutchman's  tulip  we  keep  a  prophecy  of  flowers,  and 
start  off  some  little  John  to  run  before,  and  with  his 
half  gospel  tell  of  some  great  Emmanuel,  and  signify 
to  men  that  the  kingdom  of  heavenly  beauty  is  near  at 
hand.  Now  that  forerunner  disappears,  for  the  desire 
of  all  nations  has  truly  come ;  the  green  grass  is 
creeping  everywhere,  and  it  is  spangled  with  many- 
colored  flowers  that  come  unasked.  The  dullest  bush 
tingles  with  new  life  in  all  its   limbs.      How  the   old 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  45 

apple-tree  blushes  at  the  genial  salutation  whispered 
by  the  wind,  the  Gabriel  of  heaven,  that  freest  agent 
of  Almighty  power,  "  Hail,  thou  that  art  highly 
favored !  Thou  hast  found  favor  with  God,  and  in 
due  time  shalt  rejoice,  and  drop  thy  Messianic  apples 
down."  Already  the  multitude  of  the  heavenly  host 
is  here, —  the  blackbird,  the  robin,  the  brown  thrush, 
the  purple  finch,  and  the  fire-hangbird ;  these  build 
their  nests,  while  they  sing,  "  Glory  to  God  in  the  high- 
est, on  earth  peace,  good  will  toward  men." 

What  if  there  was  a  springtime  of  blossoming  but 
once  in  a  hundred  years !  How  would  men  look  for- 
ward to  it,  and  old  men  who  had  beheld  its  wonders  tell 
the  story  to  their  children,  how  once  all  the  homely 
trees  became  beautiful,  and  earth  was  covered  with 
freshness  and  new  growth.  How  would  young  men 
hope  to  become  old  that  they  might  see  so  glad  a  sight ; 
and  when  beheld,  the  aged  man  would  say,  "  Lord, 
now  lettcst  thou  thy  servant  depart  in  peace,  for  mine 
eyes  have  seen  thy  salvation !  "  Nay,  wise  men  who 
knew  the  signs  of  the  times  would  follow  that  star  of 
spring  till  it  stood  over  that  happy  country  where  the 
young  child  was,  and  then  fall  down  and  worship  him. 
But  now,  in  every  year,  in  all  lands,  this  Messianic 
beautj'^  is  born,  this  star  stands  still  over  every  garden, 
every  farm.  It  pauses  over  each  elder-bush,  and  does 
not  disdain  the  buttercup  and  dandelion,  for,  like  that 
other  Messiah,  these  also  lie  in  the  oxen's  crib. 

What  a  solidarity  there  is  between  the  world  of  mat- 
ter and  its  inhabitants.  They  suit  and  fit  each  other 
like  him  and  her.  From  inorganic  matter  up  to  the 
highest  man  there  is  a  gradual  and  continual  ascent. 
^'^egctation  is  a  ring,  whcreunto  animation  is  a  living 
precious  stone,  with  which  God  marries  man  to  nature ; 


46   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

and  the  world  of  spirit  and  the  world  of  matter  are 
no  longer  twain,  but  the  two  are  wedlocked  into  one. 
How  the  world  of  matter  is  grateful  to  our  flesh !  To 
canny  man  the  world  is  very  kind.  It  feeds  us, 
clothes,  houses,  heals,  and  at  last  folds  us  in  its  bosom, 
whence  our  flesh  is  a  perpetual  resurrection,  and  rises 
again  into  other  men,  while  the  soul  invisible  fares 
further  on  in  the  ascending  march  of  infinite  progres- 
sion, whereof  we  see  the  beginning,  and  to  which  there 
is  no  end. 

How  the  world  delights  us  with  its  beauty, —  feed- 
ing, clothing,  housing,  healing,  the  nobler  part  of 
man !  Even  the  savage  and  the  baby  love  the  hand- 
some things  of  earth.  Little  Two-year-old,  a  lumpy 
baby,  as  merry  as  a  May-bee,  comes  stumbling  through 
the  grass,  and  loves  to  pick  the  attractive  flowers, 
drawn  by  their  very  loveliness,  that  will  not  feed  his 
mouth,  but  feed  his  soul.  Thoughtful  man  makes  a 
grand  eclecticism  of  loveliness  from  earth,  air,  water, 
sky,  and  rainbows  both  Joseph's  and  Josephine's  coat, 
builds  his  house  with  architectural  beauty,  has  paint- 
ing, sculpture,  and  music  to  attend  him. 

What  a  fair  sign  of  God's  all-embracing  love  Is 
found  in  this  presence  of  beauty, —  a  sweet  charm 
which  fascinates  us  to  refinement  and  elevation  of  char- 
acter! It  does  not  seem  needful  to  the  conception  of 
the  world  that  nature  should  be  beautiful.  Why  need 
any  star  be  limned  so  fair.''  The  moon  must  walk, — 
but  need  she  walk  in  beauty .?  Why  should  the  form 
of  the  apple,  peach,  nut,  the  blossom  of  the  Indian 
corn,  and  every  little  grain,  be  made  so  handsome.? 
Surely  they  could  feed  us  just  as  well  otherwise.  Why 
set  off'  beast  and  bird  with  such  magnificence,  and  so 
clothe  the  grass  of  the  field,  which  is  here  to-day,  and 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  47 

to-morrow  is  cast  into  the  oven?  Why  make  the  morn- 
ing and  night  such  handsome  children,  and  purple  the 
anemone  with  the  charcoal  where  heedless  boys  have 
burned  the  grass,  and  out  of  battle-fields  bring  such 
loveliness,  beauty  cradled  in  the  bloody  arms  of 
strength?  You  can  read  it  all.  A  great  poet  told  it 
two  hundred  years  ago :  "  0  Mighty  Love  !  Man  is 
one  world,  and  hath  Another  to  attend  him  " ;  and  it 
answers  to  his  being  more  tenderly  than  he  thinks.  So 
long  as  a  single  star  burns  in  heaven  with  fire,  or  a 
rose  on  earth  flings  out  her  own  loveliness,  or  the  water- 
lily  rings  beauty's  sweet-toned  bells,  no  Hebrew  or 
Christian  revelation  shall  make  me  doubt  the  infinite 
loving-kindness  of  God,  to  saint  and  sinner  too.  Ev- 
ery violet,  every  dandelion,  every  daffodil,  or  jonquil, 
is  a  preacher  sent  to  tell  us  of  the  loving-kindness  of 
God.  For  that  doctrine,  at  this  hour  there  is  a  ser- 
mon on  every  mount,  east,  south,  west,  or  north. 

And  how  this  world  of  beauty  and  use  is  a  school- 
house  also  for  the  mind,  and  a  church  likewise  for  the 
soul,  to  inspire  men  with  devotion!  In  tropic  lands, 
swept  by  hurricanes,  rent  by  earthquakes,  or  desolated 
by  volcanoes,  I  do  not  wonder  that  men  believe  in  a 
devil  who  sometimes  gets  the  better  of  the  good  God. 
Superstition  is  a  natural  weed  in  the  savage  human  soil, 
which  yet  the  rising  religious  blade  overtops  and  lives 
down,  and  kills  out  at  last.  It  is  not  surprising  that 
everywhere,  rude  but  thoughtful  men  looked  on  the 
falling  earth  and  the  steadfast  sky,  and  saw  the  many 
forms  of  wondrous,  yet  uncomprehended  life,  and  said, 
"  All  these  things  are  gods,"  and  sought  to  worship 
them.  Nature  is  the  primer  where  man  first  learns  of 
God.  There,  "  day  unto  day  uttereth  speech,  and 
night  unto   night   showeth   knowledge.     There   is   no 


48   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

voice  nor  language," —  yet  the  eye  finds  revelations. 
Not  only  to  Hebrew  Moses,  but  to  all  humankind,  God 
speaks  in  every  burning  bush,  and  the  rising  of  nature's 
song  wakes  new  morning  in  the  soul  of  man.  This 
perpetual  renewal  of  vegetation,  this  annual  wonder  of 
blossoming, —  what  a  religious  revelation  it  offers  to 
us !  How  it  fills  us  with  admiration,  trust,  and  love ! 
Every  flowering  bush  burns  with  God,  and  is  not  con- 
sumed. With  neither  trick  nor  miracle.  He  changes 
water  into  wine,  on  all  the  vine-clad  hills  of  Italy, 
France,  and  Spain,  and  fills  not  five  thousand  men,  but 
five  thousand  times  two  hundred  thousand, —  a  thou- 
sand million  men, —  every  day ;  and  on  the  broken 
bread  of  this  meal  supports  the  multitudinous  armies 
of  beast,  bird,  fish,  insect,  reptile.  No  little  worm  is 
turned  away  unfed  from  that  dear  Father's  board 
where  the  trencher  is  set,  and  all  things  made  ready  for 
the  ephemeron  bom  this  minute,  and  to  perish  the  next 
hour.  Compared  to  this  wonder  of  law,  the  tales  of 
miracle,  of  the  Old  Testament  or  New,  are  no  fact,  but 
poor  poetry.  They  are  like  ghosts  among  a  market 
full  of  busy  men  and  women. 

How  old  is  the  material  world,  and  yet  forever  fresh 
and  young !  So  it  is  with  the  human  world.  If  the  race 
of  men  be  thirty  thousand  years  old,  then  there  are  a 
thousand  fathers  between  us  and  the  first  man ;  and  yet 
you  and  I  are  just  as  new  and  fresh,  and  just  as  near  to 
God,  as  the  first  father  and  mother.  We  derive  our  hu- 
manity from  Him,  not  them ;  and  hold  it  by  divine  pat- 
ent from  the  Creator  of  all.  Mankind  never  grows  old. 
You  and  I  pass  off  as  leaves  are  blown  from  the  trees, 
decay,  and  are  exhaled,  becoming  but  vapors  of  the  sky 
again.  So  also  do  nations  grow  old  and  pass  away. 
At  the  gate  where   Egypt,   Assyria,   Judea,    Greece, 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  49 

Sparta,  and  Rome,  were  admitted  through,  stand  Spain 
and  Italy  to-day,  beating  at  the  door,  and  crying, 
"  Divinest  Mother,  let  thy  weary  daughters  in ! " 
They  will  pass  to  the  judgment  of  nations,  and  in  due 
time  Britain  and  America  will  be  gathered  to  their 
fathers,  but  mankind  will  have  still,  as  now,  the  bloom 
of  immortal  youth  about  his  handsome  brow.  Thirty 
thousand  years,  perhaps  sixty,  nobody  knows  how  long, 
has  he  lived  here ;  still  not  a  hair  is  gray,  no  sense  is 
dull,  the  eye  of  this  old  Moses  of  humanity  is  not  dim, 
nor  is  his  natural  strength  abated ;  and  new  nations 
are  still  bom  as  vigorous  as  the  old,  and  to  much  better 
estate. 

The  last  three  generations  have  done  more  than  any 
six  before  in  science,  letters,  art,  religion,  and  the 
greatest  art  of  bearing  men  and  building  them  into 
families,  communities,  nations,  and  the  human  world. 
The  religious  faculty  vegetates  into  new  churches,  ani- 
mates into  new  civilization  men  and  women.  Tell  me 
of  Moses,  Isaiah,  Confucius,  Zoroaster,  Buddha,  Pytha- 
goras, Jesus,  Paul,  Mahomet,  Aquinas,  Luther,  and 
Calvin  —  a  whole  calendar  full  of  saints !  I  give  God 
thanks  for  them,  and  bare  my  brow,  and  do  them  rev- 
erence, and  sit  down  at  their  feet  to  learn  what  they 
have  to  offer.  They  are  but  leaves  and  fruit  on  the 
tree  of  humanity,  which  still  goes  on  leafing,  flowering, 
fruiting,  with  other  Isaiahs  and  Christs,  whereof  there 
is  no  end.  As  the  tree  grows  taller,  the  wealth  of 
blossoms  is  more,  and  so  too  the  harvest  of  its  fruit. 
When  the  woods  have  not  a  leaf,  when  the  ocean  has 
not  a  drop,  when  the  sun  has  not  a  particle  of  life,  still 
shall  the  soul  of  man  look  up  to  Grod,  and  reverence 
the  Infinite  Father  and  Mother,  love  and  trust ;  for 

God  created  man  in  His  own  image,  and  gave  him  to 
XI— 4 


50   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

be  partaker  of  His  own  immortality,  and  no  devil  can 
filch  his  birthright  away  from  the  meanest  man.  No 
virtue  fades  out  of  mankind.  Not  over-hopeful  by  in- 
born temperament,  cautious  by  long  experience,  I  yet 
never  despair  of  human  virtue.  The  little  charity 
which  palliates  effects  sometimes  fails,  but  the  great 
justice  which  removes  the  causes  of  ill  is  as  eternal  as 
God.  So  the  most  precious  com  of  humanity  which 
I  gather  from  the  pastures  of  ethics  and  history,  and 
out  of  the  deep,  well-ploughed  field  of  philosophy,  I 
sow  beside  the  waters,  nothing  doubting.  Some  falls 
on  a  rock,  where  suddenly  it  starts,  and  presently 
withers  away.  The  shallow-minded  bring  no  fruit  to 
perfection,  and  only  produce  ears  of  chaff.  Some 
drops  by  the  wayside,  and  covetousness,  lust,  vanity, 
and  ambition,  devour  it  up,  rioting  to-day  on  what 
should  be  seed-corn  for  future  generations.  Some  is 
blown  before  bigots,  who  trample  it  under  their  feet, 
and  turn  again  and  rend  me  with  their  sermons  and 
their  prayers.  But  I  know  that  most  of  it  will  fall 
into  good  ground, —  earnest,  honest  men  and  women, 
where  in  due  time,  if  not  in  my  day,  it  will  spring  up, 
and  bear  fruit  of  everlasting  life,  some  thirtyfold, 
some  forty,  some  sixty,  and  some  a  hundred.  Hopeful 
mankind  is  not  forgetful  to  entertain  strangers,  nor 
lets  an  angel  pass  for  lack  of  invitation.  Tenacious 
mankind  lets  slip  no  good  that  is  old. 

"  One  accent  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
The  heedless  world  has  never  lost," — 

nor  ever  will. 

But  while  the  human  race  is  on  the  earth, —  its  con- 
tinuing city,  ever  building,  never  done, —  our  individual 
life  has  also  another  spring.     Death  is  but  a  blossom- 


THE  MATERIAL  WORLD  61 

ing  out  from  the  bulbous  body,  which  kept  the  precious 
germ  all  winter  long,  and  now  the  shards  fall  off,  and 
the  immortal  flower  opens  its  beauty,  which  God  trans- 
fers to  His  own  paradise,  fragrant  with  men's  good 
deeds  and  good  thoughts ;  nay,  where  their  good  wishes 
and  prayers  pass  at  their  proper  worth. 

There  runs  a  story  that  one  Passover  Sabbath  day, 
when  Jesus  was  a  boy  of  twelve,  he  stood  with  his 
mother  at  the  door  of  their  little  cottage  in  Nazareth, 
■ — his  father  newly  dead,  and  his  brothers  and  sisters 
playing  their  noisy  games.  And  he  said,  "  O  mother, 
would  that  I  had  lived  in  the  times  when  there  was 
open  vision,  and  the  Lord  visited  the  earth,  as  in  the 
days  of  Adam,  Abraham,  and  Moses.  These  are  sad 
times,  mother,  which  we  have  fallen  in." 

Mary  laid  the  baby,  sleeping,  from  her  arms,  and 
took  a  sprig  of  hyssop  out  of  the  narrow  wall,  and 
said,  "  Lo,  God  is  here !  and,  my  boy,  not  less  than  on 
Jacob's  Ladder  do  angels  herein  go  up  and  down.  It 
is  springtime  now,  and  the  voice  of  the  turtle  is  heard 
in  our  land,  and  the  blossom  of  this  grape-vine  is 
fragrant  with  God.  The  date-tree,  the  white  rose  of 
Sharon,  and  the  lily-of-the-valley,  root  in  Him.  He 
is  in  your  little  garden  out  there,  not  less  than  in  grand 
Eden,  with  Adam  and  Eve.  Look  how  the  setting  sun 
has  sketched  out  all  the  hills !  What  a  purple  glory 
flames  in  the  west,  and  is  reflected  in  the  east,  where 
the  full  moon  tells  us  it  is  Passover  day." 

"  Nay,  mother,"  said  the  thoughtful  boy ;  "  but  He 
has  left  the  soul  of  Israel  for  their  sins.  So  Rabbi 
Jonas  told  us  in  the  synagogue  to-day.  Oh,  that  I 
had  lived  with  Elias  or  Amos,  when  the  spirit  fell  on 
men !     I  had  also  been  filled  with  Him." 

And  Mary  took  up  her  wakened  baby,  who  began  to 


52  THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

cry,  and  stilling  it  in  her  bosom,  she  said,  "  The  sins  of 
Israel,  my  boy,  are  like  Rebecca's  cry.  God  is  more 
mother  to  the  children  of  Israel  than  I  to  her.  Do  you 
think  He  will  forsake  the  world?  This  little  baby  is  as 
new  as  Adam ;  and  God  is  as  near  to  you  as  he  was  to 
Abraham,  Moses,  Amos,  or  Elias.  He  speaks  to  you  as 
to  Samuel.  He  never  withdraws  from  the  soul  of 
men,  but  the  dayspring  from  on  high  comes  contin- 
ually to  the  soul  of  each.  Open  the  window,  and  the 
sun  of  righteousness  comes  in." 

And  Jesus  paused,  the  story  tells,  and  sat  there,  and 
while  his  mother  laid  the  little  ones  silently  away  in 
their  poor  cribs,  he  watched  the  purple  fade  out  from 
the  sky,  and  the  great  moon  pouring  out  its  white  fire, 
with  a  star  or  two  to  keep  her  company  in  heaven. 
And  when  the  moon  was  overhead,  there  came  two 
young  lovers,  newly  wed,  and  as  Jesus  caught  the  joy 
of  their  talk  to  one  another,  and  smelt  the  fragrance 
of  the  blooming  grape,  there  came  a  gush  of  devotion 
in  his  young  heart,  and  he  said,  "  My  Father  worketh 
hitherto ;  I  also  will  work," —  and  laid  him  down  to 
his  dreams  and  slept,  preparatory  to  the  work  which 
fills  the  world. 


II 

THE  NATURE  OF  MAN 
THE  GRANDEUR  AND  THE  BEAUTY  OF  MAN 

Of  all  the  wonderful  things  of  God,  man  the  won- 
derer  is  himself  the  most  wonderful.  He  is  so  well- 
bom,  so  variously  and  richly  gifted  with  personal 
faculties,  which  are  so  numerous  for  action,  and  which 
aspire  so  high ;  so  amply  furnished  with  material  means 
to  exercise  his  faculties  and  achieve  his  aspiration,  with 
all  eternity  for  his  work-day,  and  all  immensity  to 
grow  in, —  it  is  amazing  how  much  is  shut  up  within 
how  little ;  within  a  creature  a  few  feet  high,  living  on 
earth  some  threescore  years !  Man  is  the  jewel  of  God, 
who  has  created  this  material  universe  as  a  casket  to 
keep  his  treasure  in.  All  the  material  world  is  made  to 
minister  to  man's  development, —  a  cupboard  of  food 
or  a  cabinet  of  pleasure.  The  ox  bears  his  burdens ; 
the  arctic  whale  feeds  the  scholar's  or  the  housewife's 
lamp ;  the  lightnings  take  their  master's  thought  on 
their  wings  and  bear  it  over  land  or  underneath  the 
sea.  The  amaranthine  gems  which  blossom  slowly  in 
the  caverns  of  the  ground, —  these  are  the  rose-buds  for 
his  bosom.  The  human  Elias  goes  up  in  his  chariot 
of  flame ;  he  has  his  sky-chariot,  and  his  sea-chariot, 
and  his  chariots  for  land,  drawn  by  steeds  of  fire  which 
himself  has   made. 

You  admire  the  height  of  the  mountains.  But 
man's  mind  is  higher  than  the  tallest  of  them.  You 
wonder  at  the  "  great  and  wide  sea,  wherein  are  things 
creeping  innumerable,  both  small  and  great  beasts,"  as 
the  Psalmist  says.     But  man's  mind  is  wider  than  the 

53 


54   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

sea,  comprehends  the  deep,  learns  its  laws,  makes  the 
tide  serve  him,  and  the  ocean  becomes  a  constant  ferry- 
man and  common  carrier  of  the  world.  Nay,  in  the 
stone  which  was  once  the  ocean's  rim,  man  reads  the 
most  private  history  of  the  sea  itself,  what  fishes  swam 
in  its  deeps  a  million  years  ago,  what  rushes  grew  on 
its  border,  what  thunder-showers,  from  what  direction, 
left  their  mark  on  its  sandy  beach,  what  oyster  sucked 
its  ooze.  For  him  the  waters  chronicle  "  the  ocean 
wave's  immeasurable  laugh,"  and  record  the  smile  which 
rippled  round  the  ocean's  face  a  million  years  ago,  and 
there  man  reads  it  to-day. 

In  all  the  wonders  of  God,  nought  is  so  admirable  as 
the  admiring  man !  Other  things  in  comparison  seem 
only  as  the  sparks  which  flew  when  God's  arm  beat  the 
anvil,  and  fashioned  man.  The  material  splendors  of 
the  world,  grand  and  gorgeous  as  they  are,  to  me  seem 
very  little  when  measured  by  the  spiritual  glories  of 
the  meanest  man.  The  Andes  fill  me  with  less  amaze- 
ment than  the  mountain-minded  Humboldt,  who  ascends 
and  measures  them.  To  the  Christian  pilgrim,  the 
mountains  about  compact  Jerusalem  are  as  nothing  to 
the  vast  soul  of  Moses,  Esaias,  Samuel,  Jesus,  who 
made  the  whole  land  sanctified  in  our  remembrance. 
Yonder  unexpected  comet,  whose  coming  science  had 
not  heralded,  who  brought  no  introduction  from  Arago 
or  Leverrier,  and  presented  himself  with  no  letter  of 
recommendation,  save  the  best  of  all,  his  comely  face, 
is  far  less  glorious  than  the  rustic  lover,  who  thinks 
of  those  dear  eyes  which  are  watching  those  two  stars 
that  every  evening  so  sweetly  herald  the  night.  Nay, 
this  hairy  stranger  is  far  inferior  to  the  mind  that 
shall  calculate  its  orbit,  and  foretell  its  next  arrival 
to  our  sight.     High  and  glorious  are  the  stars !     What 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN  65 

a  flood  of  loveliness  do  they  pour  through  the  dark- 
ness every  night, —  a  beauty  and  a  mystery !  But  the 
civilized  man  who  walks  under  them,  nay,  the  savage 
who  looks  up  at  them  only  as  the  wolf  he  slays  regards 
them,  has  a  fairer  and  a  deeper  beauty,  is  a  more  mys- 
terious mystery ;  and  when  the  youngest  of  that  family 
has  grown  old  and  hollow-eyed,  and  its  light  has  gone 
out  from  its  household  hearth,  the  savage  man,  no 
longer  savage,  shall  still  flame  in  his  career,  which  has 
no  end,  passing  from  glory  to  glory,  and  pouring  a 
fairer  light  across  the  darkness  of  the  material  world. 
The  orbit  of  the  mind  is  wider  than  creation's  utmost 
rim ;  nor  ever  did  centripetal  and  centrifugal  forces 
describe  in  their  sweep  a  comet's  track  so  fair-pro- 
portioned as  the  sweep  of  human  life  round  these 
two  foci,  the  mortal  here,  and  the  immortal  in  the 
world  not  seen. 

man's  nature  greater  than  his  history 

I  see  that  during  the  whole  life  of  mankind,  be  it  six 
or  sixty  thousand  years,  very  much  has  been  done,  and 
the  results  are  treasured  up  in  science,  laws,  ethics, 
fonns  of  society  and  faith.  I  consider  the  attainments 
of  the  human  race  as  a  whole,  and  reverence  it  very 
much.  I  see  a  record  of  it  in  some  great  library,  and 
I  wonder  at  mankind,  so  great,  in  its  life  to  have  learned 
all  that  is  treasured  up  in  the  Vatican  at  Rome,  or  the 
National  Library  at  Paris, —  and  I  can  learn  so  very 
little  in  all  my  life,  not  even  enough  to  understand  these 
flowers  in  my  hand.  I  look  over  the  list  of  mighty  men 
who  have  been  the  schoolmasters  of  the  race,  I  see  how 
they  are  forgot  and  passed  by  by  other  schoolmasters, 
and  I  wonder  at  the  spiritual  riches  of  man  which  can 
aff^ord  to  lose  whole  generations  of  philosophers,  poets, 


5Q     THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

mighty  men,  and  never  feel  the  loss.  I  wonder  at  the 
institutions  of  mankind,  the  laws,  the  organizations  of 
Church  and  State.  But  I  see  that  the  spirit  of  man  is 
greater  than  all  these;  that  it  can  pull  them  all  down 
and  build  greater  yet,  that  man's  nature  is  more  than 
his  history.  So  I  reverence  the  past,  its  great  institu- 
tions and  great  men ;  but  I  reverence  the  nature  of  man 
far  more  than  these,  and  put  more  trust  in  that  than 
in  all  the  achievements  of  man,  all  the  institutions,  all 
the  great  men  of  history, —  who  are  but  as  the  water- 
cresses,  and  wind-flowers,  and  violets,  which  come  out 
in  a  single  spring  day,  whilst  our  human  nature  is  the 
great  earth  itself,  whose  bosom  bears  them  all,  and  pre- 
pares for  a  whole  springtime  of  fairer  flowers,  a  whole 
summer  and  autumn  of  richer  herbage  and  abundant 
fruit.  Then  to  me  the  achievements  recorded  in  the 
Vatican  at  Rome  and  the  National  Library  at  Paris  are 
but  a  trifle,  when  measured  by  the  human  soul ;  but  as 
Newton's  primer  and  Christ's  first  lesson-book  com- 
pared with  the  mighty  stature  of  those  lofty  men. 

HUMAN  NATURE  ADEQUATE  TO  ITS  END 

Certainly  we  do  find  in  human  nature  some  things 
which  are  revolting.  Many  things  of  that  character 
come  out  in  human  history.  I  suppose  there  is  not  a 
grown  person  in  this  audience  who  has  not  often  been 
disgusted  with  himself,  finding  meannesses,  littlenesses, 
basenesses  in  his  own  character.  The  amount  of  self- 
ishness and  consequent  cruelty  now  in  the  world,  and 
the  still  greater  amount  in  times  past,  has  a  very  dark 
and  ugly  look.  Sometimes  it  does  seem  as  if  it  would 
have  been  better  if  mankind  could  have  started  on  a 
little  higher  plane  of  existence,  and  been  more  devel- 
oped before  they  were  created,  so  to  say.     Attend  a 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN  67 

thieves'  ball,  of  small  thieves,  with  their  appropriate 
partners,  in  a  dancing  garret  in  Boston,  or  a  thieves' 
ball  in  the  President's  House  at  Washington,  of  great 
political  thieves,  who  steal  territories  and  islands, — 
watch  their  motions,  study  their  character,  and  you  do 
not  think  very  highly  of  human  nature, —  at  the  first 
thought  and  sight,  I  mean.  But  —  not  to  pause  now, 
and  look  a  little  deeper,  in  a  ball  of  little  thieves  in  a 
garret,  or  of  great  thieves  in  the  President's  saloon  — 
it  is  rather  idle  to  grumble  against  human  nature,  for, 
after  all,  this  human  nature  is  the  best  nature  we  have 
got,  and  we  are  not  likely  either  to  get  rid  of  the  old 
or  to  get  hold  of  a  new ;  and  besides,  it  is  exactly  the 
nature  which  the  Infinite  God  has  given  us,  and  it  is 
probable,  not  to  look  deeper  at  this  moment,  that  He 
made  it  just  as  He  meant  to  make  it,  neither  better, 
neither  worse,  and  made  it  for  a  good  end,  an  end,  too, 
which  the  dancing  of  little  thieves  with  their  partners 
or  of  great  thieves  with  theirs  will  not  frustrate  nor 
ultimately  pervert. 

MAX    THE    HIGHEST    PRODUCT    OF    MAN's    WORK 

Man  is  the  highest  product  of  his  own  history.  The 
discoverer  finds  nothing  so  grand  or  tall  as  himself, 
nothing  so  valuable  to  him.  The  greatest  star  is  that 
at  the  little  end  of  the  telescope,  the  star  that  is  look- 
ing, not  looked  after  nor  looked  at.  "  Columbus," 
says  his  monument,  "  gave  a  new  world  to  Castile 
and  Leon."  He  really  opened  a  new  destination  to 
mankind,  and  the  world  turned  on  his  rudder  hinges, 
as  he  set  the  prow  of  his  vessel  westward, 

"  And  was  the  first  that  ever  burst 
Into  that  silent  sea." 


58      Till.   WORM)  OF  MATTKK  AND  MAN 

Hiif.  Ili/il  service,  nay,  l.lic  cllorl  lo  pcrlonn  it,  ^ave 
liiin  a  clianirh  r  wliicli  to  liim  waH  wortti  more  than  all 
Aincrica.  'i'lic  lii^lM-Mf,  product  of  art  is  not  the  pic- 
ture or  Htatue;  it  \h  the  artist.  In  tlie  son  I  of  Ka[)tiael 
there  was  Horriethin^  to  liim  wortti  more  than  all  which 
lf)ol<cci  r)iit  of  the  eyes  of"  his  Madonna  or  St.  Cecilia. 
Ill  painting  the  f'uhled  resurrection  iuu\  asceriHion  of 
JeHiiH,  lie  aHHiHted  mI  his  own  actual  reHurrection  and 
/iHcension ;  [laintiri^  the  picture,  he  was  heconiin^  a 
iri/ui.  I''or  the  most  of  men  his  highest  work  was  his 
p/iiiilin;^;  for  himself"  il  w/is  his  (rharactcr.  "^I'herc  is 
this  iwot'oldness  in  all  hum/in  work.  There  is  the 
visihie  result  for  the  most  ;  it  is  the  crop  of  Ihe  farmer, 
I  he  minister's  sermon,  the  special  service  which  each 
one  of  us  does.  Hut  there  is  an  invisihie  result  of 
ch;ir;icler  for  the  individual,  that  he  carries  up  with 
liim  l()  heaven;  il  is  Ins,  not  another's.  Messrs.  (Jrist 
/ind  Toll  ^riiid  for  the  little  town  of  I'iat  /iiid  live  all 
their  <lays.  (^iiite  useful  are  these  two  dusty  millers; 
nay,  indispensahle  to  every  man  and  woman.  Mut  to 
Ihem,  their  little  mill  /grinds  out  not  corn  only  into 
meal,  hut  virtue,  wisdom,  trust  in  (Jod,  nohle  character. 
So  alon/.;'  with  their  daily  hread.  If  Ihey  are  men,  they 
jire  <-rcatin^  the  hread  of  life  for  their  own  souls,  and 
living  on  il.  Millon  and  Shakespeare  left  us  ^reat 
words,  and  Iherehy  did  much  service  to  mankind;  hut 
in  wrilin/^'  their  hooks,  [hey  comjiosed  their  character 
i\\  Ihe  same  lime.  IJesides  Ihe  Paradise  I.osI  wliich  the 
j^re/il  poet  left  hehind  him,  I  here  was  a  I'aradlHO  Found, 
which  f^rew  in  his  own  silent  consciousness,  and  wliicll 
he  look  aloii;^'  with  him  when  he  shook  oil"  thi>  <lusty 
llesh  he  wore  heiie/dh.  SiiMc  that  lime  there  has  been 
nuiny  a  cheap  or  <'oslIy  edition  of  his  Paradise  Lost, 
not  another  of  his   Paradise   l'\)und.     I'he  fair  auto- 


THE  NATURE  OF  ISIAN  59 

j^rjiplilc  copy  IIk'itoI'  lio  rarriotl  with  Iiiiu,  and  uiifoUlcd 
its  imiuortiil  pages  bcioro  the  eyes  of  CiDtl.  So  it  is 
witli  us  all.  Our  work  is  double.  The  pendulum  of 
our  life  swings  ever  haekward  and  forward,  with  its 
double  beat, —  time,  eternity, —  eternity,  time.  But 
the  word  time  is  what  we  hear,  and  that  side  of  the  pcr- 
liendieular  is  the  side  of  the  vibration  we  see  and  know. 
IJut  all  things  we  do  are  provisional,  only  our  charac- 
ter is  ultimate  and  final. 

The  first  man  had  all  the  faculties  of  the  Hoyal 
Academy,  and  all  iUc  faiullies  of  the  whole  Calendar 
of  Saints;  but  tliese  faculties  lay  in  him  as  the  water- 
power  lay  in  the  Mcrrimac  River,  and  the  steam-power 
of  I'iUgland  in  her  rivers  and  mines  of  coal,  all  un- 
developed and  all   unknown. 

Human  nature  is  ec^ual  to  all  the  emergencies  of 
human  history. 

Tin:  KVIl,  OF  I'UTTING  A  LOW  ESTIMATE  ON  MAN 

TIjc  idea  which  we  form  of  man,  like  the  idea  which 
we  form  of  (Jod,  is  a  [>owerful  element  in  our  civiliza- 
tion, either  for  good  or  ill.  'I'his  idea  will  strongly 
affect  the  condition  and  character  of  every  one.  **  C'jdl 
a  man  )i  thief,  and  he  will  pick  a  ])ocket,"  is  already  a 
proverb.  Convince  him  that  he  is  the  n()blest  creation 
of  llu'  great  (Jod,  that  his  bi'auty  sliMmes  fhesi'  flowers 
at  mv  side,  and  out  blazons  the  stars  of  lu>aven, —  then 
he  bi'gins  to  aspin-  to  have  a  history,  to  be  a  man  ;  and 
this  aspiration  corresponds  to  tlu'  gri'al  nature  in  him. 
Soon  MS  you  convinci'  him  of  this  nature  lu>  takes  a  step 
forward,  and  puts  out  wings  to  fly  npwards. 

I    look   with  anguish  on  the  two  schemes  of  tln)Ught 


60   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

which  degrade  the  nature  of  man,  hostile  in  many  other 
respects, —  the  materiahsm  of  the  last  or  the  present 
century,  and  the  popular  theology  of  all  Christendom, 
both  of  which  put  a  low  estimate  on  man.  The  one 
makes  him  a  selfish  and  mortal  animal,  only  body  and 
bones  and  brains,  and  his  soul  but  a  function  of  the 
brute  matter  he  is  made  of.  The  other  makes  him  a 
selfish  and  immortal  devil,  powerful  only  to  sin,  and 
immortal  only  to  be  eternally  tormented.  The  popular 
theology  of  Christendom,  one  of  the  many  errors  which 
man  has  cast  out  of  him,  as  incidents  of  his  develop- 
ment, has  much  to  answer  for.  It  debases  God,  and  it 
degrades  man.  It  makes  us  think  meanly  of  ourselves, 
and  dreadfully  of  our  Creator.  What  makes  it  more 
dangerous  and  more  difficult  is  that  both  of  these  er- 
rors are  taught  as  a  miraculous  revelation  from  God 
Himself,  and  accordingly  not  amenable  to  human  cor- 
rection. 

Now  self-esteem  is  commonly  large  enough  in  the 
individual  man ;  it  is  but  rarely  that  one  thinks  of  him- 
self less  and  less  highly  than  he  ought  to  think ;  for  the 
great  function  to  be  accomplished  by  self-esteem  is  so 
very  important  that  it  is  always,  or  almost  always, 
abundantly  provided  for.  But  it  is  one  of  the  com- 
monest errors  in  the  world  to  think  meanly  of  human 
nature  itself.  It  is  also  one  of  the  most  fatal  of  mis- 
takes. Nay,  individual  self-esteem  is  often  elated  by 
the  thought  that  general  human  nature  is  rather  con- 
temptible, and  the  special  excellence  that  I  have  does 
not  come  from  my  human  nature,  which  I  have  in 
common  with  every  beggar  in  the  street  and  every 
culprit  that  was  ever  hanged,  but  from  my  personal 
nature,  and  is  singular  to  me ;  not  the  possibility  of  the 
meanest  man,  but  the  peculiar  possession  of  myself. 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN  61 

A  man  thus  gratifies  his  self-esteem  at  the  expense  of 
his  real  self-advancement  and  bliss. 

Then,  too,  it  is  thought  an  acceptable  and  beautiful 
mode  of  honoring  God  to  think  meanly  of  His  chief 
work,  that  it  is  good  for  nothing;  for  then,  it  is  said, 
we  do  not  exalt  the  creature  above  the  Creator,  but  give 
God  the  glory.  That  is,  in  reality,  we  give  God  the 
glory  of  making  a  work  that  is  good  for  nothing,  and 
not  worth  the  making.  I  could  never  think  that  I 
honored  an  artist  by  thinking  as  meanly  as  it  was  pos- 
sible on  trial  to  think  of  the  best  work  which  that 
artist  had  brought  to  pass. 

THE  FALSE  IDEA  OF  WOMAN  A  CAUSE  OF  DEGRA- 
DATION 

In  all  our  great  towns  there  is  a  class  of  women 
whose  name  is  infamous.  It  is  not  considered  Chris- 
tian to  recognize  them ;  it  would  be  thought  unwomanly 
to  have  the  smallest  pity  for  the  sisterhood  of  crime. 
What  brought  them  to  this  condition?  Idleness  or 
unwillingness  to  work?  Did  lust  drive  them  headlong 
to  that  yawning  gulf  of  shame  and  misery  and  sin, 
where  horrid  shapes  make  up  the  triune  devil  of  this 
female  hell?  The  secret  cause  of  it  all  is  the  idea  per- 
vading society  that  woman  is  inferior  to  man,  and 
created  for  his  convenience,  with  only  duties,  and  not 
rights ;  and  that  man  may  trample  her  under  his  feet, 
and  brush  off  the  blood  from  his  soul,  as  the  dust  from 
his  shoes.  A  man  stumbles  and  falls,  and  we  wipe  off 
the  smutch.  But  a  woman,  ay,  when  she  sins  in  this 
way, —  seldom  from  her  own  crime,  often  from  an- 
other's,—  we  tell  her  that  she  falls  like  Lucifer,  never 
to  hope  again. 

Did  you  ever  visit  a  House  of  Refuge,  and  see  the 


62   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

wrecks  of  womankind  which  go  to  pieces  in  a  stormy 
world,  and  leave  their  fragments  to  rot  there?  You 
pick  up  on  the  seashore  at  Truro  or  Cape  Ann  some 
relic  of  a  vessel,  perhaps  an  oar,  with  some  mark  by 
which  you  know  when  she  suffered  wreck.  You  think 
of  the  swift-sailing  ship,  of  the  day  when  she  was 
launched,  of  the  builder's  sober  joy,  as  he  stood  on  the 
shore  and  saw  the  baptism  of  his  child,  when  the  Ocean 
as  godfather  took  her  and  pressed  her  to  his  heart. 
And  then  you  think  of  the  sad  wreck  this  vessel  made, 
how  many  hopes  went  down ;  after  all  that  forged  iron 
and  seasoned  oak  could  do  against  the  storm,  she  sank. 
What  is  a  vessel  compared  to  a  woman?  What  is  the 
shipwright's  sober  joy  at  the  launching  of  his  craft 
compared  to  a  mother's  joy  when  her  new-bom  daugh- 
ter fills  her  fond,  expectant  arms?  What  is  shipwreck 
to  the  wreck  of  womankind?  You  look  at  that  frag- 
ment of  woman,  perishing  by  slow  decay  at  your  hos- 
pital on  Deer  Island,  and  you  remember  the  mother 
who  bore  her,  the  bosom  that  gave  her  life,  the  prayers 
which  consecrated  her  forehead,  the  childhood  and  girl- 
hood of  this  woman ;  you  think  of  the  first  gushing  of 
the  fairest  well-spring  in  human  life,  when  she  first  knew 
the  sentiment  of  love ;  you  think  of  her  poverty,  her 
trials  and  her  sorrows,  her  prayers,  and  her  trust  in 
God,  as  you  look  on  that  wreck, —  and  then  you  see  the 
tragic  side  of  the  picture,  and  the  injustice  which  so- 
ciety has  done  to  her.  They  tell  a  story  of  old  time, 
that  the  people  of  Athens  sent  a  tribute  every  year  of 
five  young  maidens  to  the  Minotaur,  some  horrid  mon- 
ster of  a  king,  who  slew  them.  How  many,  think  you, 
do  we  pay  as  a  tribute  annually  out  of  this  city  ?  Can 
you  count  them  by  fives,  or  by  scores,  or  by  hundreds? 
Nay,  but  by  thousands  only.     We  do  not  send  them  in 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN  63 

solemn  pomp,  as  the  Athenians  did ;  they  go  at  mid- 
night, to  a  death  of  shame. 

woman's  spiritual  TEANSCENDENCE 

There  is  a  deep  to  which  reason  goes  down  with  its 
flambeau  in  its  hand;  there  is  a  height  to  which  im- 
agination goes  up,  on  wide  wings  borne;  and  that  is 
the  deep  of  philosophy,  that  is  the  height  of  eloquence 
and  song.  But  there  is  a  deeper  depth,  where  reason 
goes  not,  a  higher  height,  where  imagination  never 
wanders;  and  that  is  the  deep  of  justice,  that  is  the 
height  of  love.  It  is  the  great  wide  heaven  of  religion. 
Conscience  goes  down  there,  affection  goes  up  there, 
the  soul  lives  up  there.  And  that  is  the  place  of 
woman.  Woman  has  gone  deeper  in  justice,  and  has 
gone  higher  in  love  and  trust,  than  man  has  gone. 

man's  spirit  reported  in  his  physical  con- 
dition 

A  man's  soul  presently  reports  Itself  in  his  body,  and 
telegraphs  in  his  flesh,  the  result  of  his  doings  in  spirit ; 
so  that  the  physical  condition  of  the  people  is  always  a 
sign  of  their  spiritual  condition,  whereof  it  is  also  a 
result.  I  mean  the  bodily  health  of  men,  the  food  they 
eat,  the  clothes  they  wear,  the  houses  they  live  in,  the 
average  age  they  reach, —  all  these  depend  on  the 
spiritual  condition  of  the  people,  and  are  a  witness 
to  the  state  of  their  mind  and  conscience,  their  heart 
and  their  soul.  True  religion,  like  sunshine,  goes 
everywhere ;  or  a  false  form  of  religion,  like  night  and 
darkness,  penetrates  into  every  crack  and  crevice  of 
a  man's  life. 


64   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

FALSE  ESTIMATE  OF  THE  BODY 

The  Christian  Church  has  done  great  injustice  to  the 
human  body.  Paul  of  Tarsus  said,  "  I  know  that  in 
my  flesh  dwelleth  no  good  thing."  That  ill-considered 
word  has  been  a  curse  to  mankind.  It  has  peopled  the 
most  civilized  lands  on  earth  with  puny  men  and  sick 
women,  and  thence  with  starvling  babies,  born  but  to 
fill  up  the  grave.  "  I  know  there  is  no  good  thing 
in  my  flesh,"  said  Paul.  He  knew  nothing  like  it; 
he  dreamed  so  or  thought  he  dreamed  so.  God  put 
no  bad  thing  there ;  it  is  full  of  good  things ;  every 
bone  from  the  crown  to  the  foot  is  a  good  bone ;  every 
muscle  is  a  good  muscle ;  every  nerve  which  animates 
the  two  is  a  good  nerve.  Do  you  think  that  God  in 
making  man  gave  him  a  body  that  was  fit  only  to  be 
trod  under  foot,  with  no  good  thing  in  it?  Trust 
your  own  flesh  and  your  own  soul,  not  the  words  of 
Paul, —  a  great  brave  man,  but  sometimes  mistaken, 
like  you  and  me. 

THE  BEAUTY  OF  YOUTH 

How  beautiful  is  youth, —  early  manhood,  early 
womanhood,  how  wonderfully  fair!  What  freshness  of 
life,  cleanness  of  blood,  purity  of  breath !  What 
hopes  !  There  is  nothing  too  much  for  the  young  maid 
or  man  to  put  into  their  dream,  and  in  their  prayer  to 
hope  to  put  into  their  day.  O  young  men  and  women, 
there  is  no  picture  of  ideal  excellence  of  manhood  and 
womanhood  that  I  ever  draw  that  seems  too  high,  too 
beautiful  for  your  young  hearts.  What  aspirations 
there  are  for  the  good,  the  true,  the  fair,  and  the  holy ! 
The  instinctive  aff'ections, —  how  beautiful  they  are, 
with  all  their  purple  prophecy  of  new  homes  and  gen- 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN  65 

erations  of  immortals  that  are  yet  to  be !  The  high 
instincts  of  reason,  of  conscience,  of  love,  of  religion, 
—  how  beautiful  and  grand  they  are  in  the  young 
heart,  fragrantly  opening  its  little  cup,  not  yet  full- 
blown, but  with  the  promise  of  a  man !  I  love  to  look 
on  these  young  faces,  and  see  the  firstlings  of  the 
young  man's  beard,  and  the  maidenly  bloom  blushing 
over  the  girl's  fair  cheek ;  I  love  to  see  the  pure  eyes 
beaming  with  hope  and  goodness,  to  see  the  unconscious 
joy  of  such  young  souls,  impatient  of  restraint,  and 
longing  for  the  heaven  that  we  fashion  here.  So  have 
I  seen  in  early  May  among  the  New  England  hills 
the  morning  springing  in  the  sky,  and  gradually  thin- 
ning off  the  stars  that  hedge  about  the  cradle  of  the 
day ;  and  all  cool  and  fresh  and  lustrous  came  the 
morning  light,  and  a  few  birds  commenced  their  songs, 
prophets  of  many  more ;  and  ere  the  sun  was  fairly 
up  you  saw  the  pinky  buds  upon  the  apple-trees,  and 
scented  the  violets  in  the  morning  air,  and  thought 
of  what  a  fresh  and  lordly  day  was  coming  up  the 
eastern  sky, 

OLD  AGE  THE  ONLY  NATURAL  DEATH 

I  take  it  that  old  age  is  the  only  natural  death  for 
mankind,  the  only  one  that  is  unavoidable,  and  must 
remain  so.  As  virtue  is  the  ideal  life  of  man,  so  is  old 
age  the  ideal  death ;  it  is  the  only  one  that  mankind  ap- 
proves. Nobody  complains  of  dying  at  a  hundred,  at 
ninety,  or  at  eighty.  We  do  not  mourn  for  our  dear 
ones,  thus  naturally  departing  in  that  respectable  way, 
at  that  far  age,  as  we  mourn  for  the  new-bom,  the 
half -grown,  or  full-grown  mature  man  or  woman.  At 
almost  fourscore   my   brothers   and   sisters   laid   their 

father's   venerable  bones  in  the  ground,  not   without 
XI— 5 


66     THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

natural  and  irrepressible  tears ;  at  almost  fivescore, 
my  father,  a  venerable  man,  laid  in  the  earth  the  bones 
of  his  mother,  not  doubtless  without  a  tear;  but  there 
was  not  that  heartrending  agony  which  comes  when  a 
young  man  or  a  child  is  cradled  in  the  dust.  That 
is  our  time  to  die.  If  poetic  Tennyson  had  writ  a 
volume  of  elegies  about  his  grandfather,  deceased  at 
a  hundred  and  ten  or  a  hundred  and  twenty,  and  ex- 
hausted the  English  tongue  in  forms  of  grief,  he  would 
have  been  laughed  at  all  round  the  land  for  his  unnatu- 
ral complainings  ;  but  now  our  hearts  beat  in  unison  with 
his  sad  mourning  In  Memoriam  of  his  well-loved  friend, 
nipped  down  in  early  life,  only  a  promise,  not  a  per- 
formance. 

WELL-BORN   PEOPLE 

Parents  transmit  their  organization  and  character  to 
their  children.  What  father  or  mother  is  there  who 
would  not  wish  to  leave  his  issue  a  great  estate  of 
human  virtue, —  in  their  bones  and  muscles,  health, 
strength,  longevity,  beauty,  and  in  their  soul,  wisdom, 
justice,  benevolence,  piety,  rather  than  the  opposite  of 
all  these?  Everything  must  bear  fruit  after  its  kind, 
you  after  yours.  Men  do  not  gather  grapes  of  thorns, 
nor  figs  of  thistles. 

Men  talk  of  good  birth,  good  blood.  No  man  hon- 
ors the  well-born  more  than  I ;  but  who  are  they  ?  In 
America  we  say  they  are  the  sons  and  daughters  of 
the  rich ;  wealth  is  nobility,  its  children  are  well-bom. 
In  Europe  we  are  told  that  they  are  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  lords  and  kings  ;  birth  from  oflScial  station 
is  nobility.  O  foolish  men !  Of  all  the  children  of 
European  royalty  in  eighty  years,  there  has  not  been 
born  a  single  boy  or  girl  who  in  common  life  would  have 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN  67 

won  the  smallest  distinction.  Amongst  the  decent  peo- 
ple of  Europe,  kings,  of  all  others,  are  the  most  ill- 
born.  Where  do  the  rich  families  of  New  England  go 
to  in  the  third  generation.''  Look  over  Boston  and  see. 
Whence  come  the  noble  talent,  the  great  virtue,  nay, 
the  poetry,  the  science,  the  eloquence,  the  literature, 
which  adorn  the  land.?  They  are  not  rocked  in  golden 
cradles.  It  is  not  royalty  in  Europe,  it  is  not  wealth 
in  New  England,  which  is  father  and  mother  to  the 
great  masterly  talent  which  controls  and  urges  forward 
the  mass  of  the  people,  with  its  masterly  mind  and 
conscience,  heart  and  soul.  No !  it  is  the  children  of 
wholesome  industrj^,  the  children  of  intelligence,  of 
morality,  of  religion,  who  are  the  well-bom.  Vir- 
tue is  nobility ;  all  else  is  but  the  paint  men  write  its 
name  withal.  Health,  strength,  beauty, —  they  are 
physically  well-born,  though  dropped  anonymous  in 
the  obscurest  ditch;  still  more,  wisdom,  integrity, 
philanthropy,  religion, —  these  are  well-born,  noble, 
yes,  royal,  if  you  will,  for  they  are  the  kingly  virtues 
of  humanity,  and  whoso  has  them,  though  he  be  cradled 
amongst  cattle,  and  laid  in  the  crib  of  an  ass  or  ox, 
he  only  is  the  best  born  of  men ! 

Who  is  there  that  would  not  covet  that  royalty  for 
himself,  and  still  more,  achieve  it  for  his  daughter  and 
his  son,  that,  when  his  bones  are  crumbling  in  some  ob- 
scure churchyard,  in  his  children  the  strong  and  flame- 
like flower  of  manly  virtue  may  blossom  fair,  and 
ripen  Its  seed,  and  sow  the  green  earth  gladsomely 
withal.'' 

GREAT  MEN 

A  great  man  is  never  an  accident.  He  comes  as  the 
end  of  a  long  series  of  causes,  which  get  summed  up 


68  THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

in  him.  There  is  nothing  miraculous  in  the  origin  of 
such  a  man ;  least  of  all  should  we  say  that  a  man  of 
genius  was  born  of  no  human  father,  for  none  is  so 
obviously  connected  with  the  present  condition  and  past 
history  of  mankind.  There  is  a  special  preparation 
made  for  him  in  the  nation  whence  he  comes ;  the  seed 
of  that  crop  was  put  into  the  ground  ages  before,  and 
he  sums  up  and  represents  the  particular  character 
of  his  nation.  Men  like  Christopher  Columbus  are 
born  only  of  maritime  people ;  their  mothers  smell  of 
the  sea.  Mathematicians  like  Archimedes  and  Leverrier 
do  not  spring  up  among  the  Sacs  and  Foxes,  but  in  the 
most  thoughtful  nations  only.  I  take  it  that  Socrates 
could  have  come  only  out  of  the  Greeks.  He  was 
Athenian  all  through.  The  special  character  of  Rome 
reappears  in  Julius  Caesar,  her  greatest  man ;  her  am- 
bition, her  taste  for  war  and  politics,  her  immense 
power  to  organize  men,  and  her  utter  Indifference  to 
human  life,  all  come  out  in  him.  The  two  Bacons, 
the  monk  and  the  chancellor,  Shakespeare,  Newton, 
Cromwell,  the  five  greatest  Englishmen,  are  not  only 
human,  but  they  are  marked  with  British  peculiarities 
all  through.  Franklin,  the  greatest  man  who  ever 
touched  our  soil,  is  most  Intensely  national ;  our  good 
and  111  condensed  In  him.  This  bright  consummate 
flower  of  New  England,  this  universal  Yankee,  could 
have  been  bom  and  bred  In  no  other  land ;  that  human 
gold  was  minted  into  American  coin.  God  makes  the 
family  of  mankind,  but  He  divides  it  out  Into  special 
peoples,  and  each  man  is  born  with  his  nationality  In 
him,  and  the  Ethiopian  cannot  change  his  skin.  Von 
Humboldt  Is  possible  only  in  Germany,  and  though  he 
has  lived  In  all  the  world,  and  talks  and  writes  In  many 
a  tongue,  yet  the  great  features  of  his  nationahty  are 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN  69 

as  plain  in  every  book  and  letter  he  writes  as  his  pa- 
rents' likeness  in  his  face.  How  quickly  we  distinguish 
between  black,  red,  and  white  men ;  how  readily  sep- 
arate those  of  our  own  color  into  English,  American, 
German,  French,  Irish !  So  the  inner  man  is  colored 
and  shaped  by  the  stock  we  come  of.  All  that  we  do 
is  stamped  with  nationality. 

This  imperious  condition  of  nationality  would  seem 
terrible  if  it  came  from  accident  or  from  blind  fate. 
As  the  result  of  that  divine  Providence  which  knows 
all  things  beforehand,  and  makes  all  work  together 
for  good,  it  looks  beautiful,  and  I  take  it  for  a  bless- 
ing. God  makes  us  one  human  nature,  but  diverse  in 
nationality,  that  we  may  help  each  other.  So  the 
hand  is  one,  but  it  is  separated  into  five  fingers,  to  make 
it  pliant  and  manifold  useful.  Climate,  natural  scen- 
ery, the  business,  institutions,  and  history  of  the  nation, 
■ —  each  makes  its  special  mark  on  you  and  me.  The 
mantle  of  destiny  girdeth  us  all. 

The  credentials  of  the  great  man  of  genius  are  writ 
in  a  larger  and  stronger  hand,  because  he  is  to  repre- 
sent his  nation  in  the  great  court  of  posterity.  Great 
men  are  the  highest  product  of  any  people,  and  they 
have  never  come  out  of  mean  nations,  more  than  great 
trees  out  of  a  thin  and  ill-adapted  soil.  So  every 
great  man  has  the  marks,  I  think,  of  his  special  family. 
Therefore  a  particular  preparation  is  long  making, 
the  ancestral  ground  for  several  generations  sloping 
upwards  towards  the  great  mountainous  man.  If  you 
study  the  family  history  of  such  a  one,  I  think  you 
always  find  finger-posts,  one  or  two  hundred  years  off, 
pointing  to  him,  on  the  maternal  or  paternal  side, — 
some  aunt  or  uncle,  or  great-grandfather,  who  looks 
like  him.     So  when  he  comes  it  is  not  a  coup  de  famUlc, 


70   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

not  like  a  thunderstroke  out  of  the  clear  sky,  but  like 
the  growth  of  an  apple  out  of  an  apple-tree,  a  regular 
development  out  of  the  ancestral  stock,  and  no  more 
surprising  than  that  a  lily  root  bears  a  lily  flower. 
Each  tree,  material  or  human,  bears  after  its  kind. 
If  any  one  of  us  could  trace  our  ancestral  stock  back 
two  hundred  years,  we  should  find  the  proximate  cause 
of  the  disposition  born  in  us.  Every  farmer  knows 
that  is  the  rule  of  ahimals.  So  when  he  buys  a  cow, 
he  wants  to  know  not  only  the  father  and  mother,  but 
the  creature's  grandparents  also.  We  all  thus  depend 
on  our  special  parentage,  and  it  is  only  more  apparent 
in  the  great  man.  None  of  us  stands  alone,  but  we 
all  lean  on  our  fathers  and  mothers,  and  they  on  such 
as  came  behind  them  ;  only  as  a  great  man  is  taller  than 
the  rest  of  us,  we  see  how  he  leans,  because  it  is  on  a 
larger  scale. 

Now  I  take  it  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  could  have 
been  born  of  no  other  nation  than  the  Hebrew.  That 
people  comes  out  in  his  character,  both  its  good  and  ill. 
The  story  that  he  had  the  Holy  Ghost  for  his  father 
is  a  fiction.  The  noble  man  is  colored  Hebrew  all 
through.  He  is  a  Jew  all  over,  and  did  not  take  that 
from  one  parent  alone.  He  is  as  intensely  national  as 
Benjamin  Franklin  or  Robert  Burns.  Men  say  that 
divine  inspiration  controlled  the  human  disposition  in 
him  ;  but  you  see  how  the  literature  of  his  people  colored 
his  mind,  and  gave  a  hue  to  his  every  thought  and  word. 
He  is  so  full  of  the  Old  Testament  that  it  runs  over 
in  all  his  speech.  The  history  of  his  people  comes  out 
with  his  religious  doctrines  and  expectations.  The 
national  idea  of  a  Messiah  affected  him  very  strongly, 
turning  his  human  genius  into  a  special  channel. 
He  was  not  the  less  human  because  he  was  also  a  Jew. 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN  71 

When  a  great  man  comes,  he  affects  men  deeply  and 
widely.  Every  Columbus  leaves  a  new  world  for  man- 
kind, some  continent  of  art,  science,  literature,  morals, 
religion,  philanthropy.  But  just  in  proportion  as 
such  a  man  is  gi-eat  and  original,  and  so  capable  to 
influence  mankind  for  centuries,  so  does  he  at  first 
waken  opposition,  and  fail  to  be  appreciated,  and  that 
by  whole  multitudes  of  men.  In  his  lifetime,  nobody 
thought  much  of  William  Shakespeare  as  a  poet. 
Bacon,  a  man  of  the  world,  the  most  original  and  cul- 
tivated thinker  in  the  British  Islands,  must  often  have 
heard  his  plays,  Cudworth,  a  man  of  the  university, 
the  most  learned  man  in  all  England,  truly  great,  with 
a  mighty  range  of  comprehension,  and  familiar  with 
all  literature,  quoting  the  plays  of  other  ages  and 
other  nations,  never  refers  to  Shakespeare.  Neither 
of  these  great  comprehensive  men  took  any  notice  of 
the  greatest  genius  Great  Britain  ever  saw.  That 
poetical  sun  rose  and  went  up  into  the  heavens,  while 
these  scholars  sat  in  their  comers  and  read  by  their 
rushlights,  but  knew  nothing  of  that  great  luminary 
which  was  making  a  new  day  all  round  the  world. 

Colleges  confer  their  degrees  on  the  vulgarest  of 
ministers,  and  none  others,  save  in  exceptional  cases. 
I  doubt  that  St.  Paul  ever  got  a  D.D.  put  after  his 
name  in  large  letters ;  possibly  it  was  put  before  it  in 
small  ones.  No  Academy  of  Science  bestows  honor  on 
the  inventors  of  science.  Men  grumble  at  this ;  even 
men  of  genius  are  sorry,  and  whine  at  such  a  fate,  and 
complain  to  their  wives  and  daughters  that  it  is  an  un- 
grateful world,  and  a  man  of  genius  has  a  hard  time 
of  it ;  —  for  he  wants  not  only  his  genius  to  ride  on 
through  the  sky,  but  a  coach  and  six  to  trundle  him 
along  the  street.     Poor  man  !     When  God  sends  genius. 


72  THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

the  philosophic  of  Socrates,  the  poetic  of  Shakespeare, 
or  the  rehgious  of  Jesus,  there  is  no  need  that  acade- 
mies bestow  their  honors  on  him ;  he  gets  his  degree  at 
first-hand,  not  from  delegated  officials.  Such  good 
wine  needs  no  academic  nor  ecclesiastic  bush.  His 
college  honors  are  conferred  by  the  university  of  the 
people ;  not  until  after  he  has  ceased  to  be  mortal,  and 
gone  home,  where  he  sighs  not  for  approbation,  eccle- 
siastic or  academic. 

The  great  man  of  genius  is  the  immediate  result  of 
all  the  people's  work.  It  comes  not  of  himself.  With 
much  toil  the  Egyptians  build  up  their  pyramid,  the 
work  of  a  whole  nation,  its  most  lasting  monument. 
But  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  not  less  the  work  of  the 
Hebrew  people,  the  last  result  of  all  their  life,  by  far 
the  greatest  of  the  Hebrew  pj^ramids,  Palestine's  no- 
blest monument ;  and  the  beginning  of  Jesus  was  when 
Moses  led  Israel  up  out  of  Egypt. 

The  great  man  affects  his  people  and  their  thought 
for  a  time  proportionate  to  his  power,  and  the  direction 
he  gives  it.  When  he  dies,  his  character  lives  for  him ; 
his  ideas,  his  spirit,  have  passed  into  the  consciousness 
of  the  people,  and  continue  there,  a  new  force  to  create 
men  like  him.  Shakespeare,  Bacon,  Newton,  have  been 
gathered  to  their  fathers  long  since;  but  how  much 
is  there  which  is  Shakespearian,  Baconian,  Newtonian ; 
certainly  a  thousand  times  as  much  as  when  their  great 
genius  was  condensed  into  the  poet,  the  philosopher, 
and  the  mathematician.  Benjamin  Franklin  is  dead, 
and  his  body  sleeps  in  the  little  Quaker  churchyard  at 
Philadelphia.  But  how  much  is  there  of  the  Franklin 
kind  of  man  in  America ;  more  than  there  ever  was  be- 
fore, a  thousand  times  as  much  as  when  he  had  it  all. 
One  or  two  hundred  places  in  the  United  States  are 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN  73 

called  after  him,  and  his  mind  has  gone  into  our  mind 
more  than  his  name  into  the  continent's  geography. 
The  great  man's  character  is  not  kept  in  the  line  of  a 
single  family.  The  ancestral  tree  roots  under  ground 
a  great  while,  grows  in  its  modest  way  for  centuries, 
and  in  due  time  bears  the  great  aloe  blossom  of  genius, 
and  the  tree  dies.  I  think  no  family  on  earth  ever 
bears  two  first-rate  men.  There  is  one  Shakespeare, 
one  Bums,  and  if  there  were  two  Bacons,  they  were 
not  otherwise  known  to  be  related  than  that  both  were 
Englishmen.  There  is  one  Franklin,  one  Cuvier,  one 
Leibnitz,  one  Kant.  These  men  may  have  a  thousand 
children,  but  the  aloe  flower  of  genius  does  not  appear 
again  on  the  tree  that  has  borne  it  once.  Perhaps 
every  family  is  destined  to  bear  a  great  man  in  the 
ages ;  only  some  put  out  that  blossom  early,  and  others 
it  may  take  a  thousand  years  to  mature  it.  But  if 
the  flower  breaks  down  the  tree,  the  fruit  scatters  its 
seed  across  the  continent.  Mankind  inherits  the  per- 
sonal estate  of  genius,  which  does  not  descend  in  the 
family.  To-day  there  is  no  Jesus,  but  how  much  more 
that  is  Jesus-like ;  not  in  Judea  alone,  but  in  all  the 
world.  All  that  he  was  now  vests  in  the  human  race. 
This  millionaire  of  religion  left  his  estate  in  trust  to 
mankind.  God  is  the  guardian  who  manages  it  for  the 
advantage  of  all  ages.     It 

"Spreads  undivided,  operates  unspent:" 

nay,  it  thickens  as  it  spreads,  and  is  enlarged  when  it 
is  spent. 

How  pliant  is  human  nature  before  the  plastic  power 
of  a  great  genius !  When  you  and  I  hear  some  man  of 
great  mind  and  great  rhetorical  art  utter  his  humanest 
thoughts,  we  swing  to  and  fro  as  he  also  vibrates.     His 


74   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

thought  is  in  our  thoughts,  and  if  his  cheek  but  blanch, 
ours  also  turns  pale ;  and  we  flush  as  his  blood  reddens 
in  his  face.  So  the  great  man  affects  mankind,  not  for 
a  minute  but  for  ages  long, 

MEN  OF  TALENT  AND  MEN  OF  GENIUS 

There  are  two  classes  of  great  men, —  great  men  of 
talent,  and  great  men  of  genius.  They  are  unlike  in 
their  center,  very  much  alike  in  their  circumference, 
where  they  meet  and  blend.  There  is  one  class  of  un- 
common persons  who  have  more  of  what  everybody  has 
a  little.  They  differ  from  the  rest  in  quantity,  not  in 
kind.  They  do  as  other  men,  but  better  and  stronger. 
They  create  nothing  new,  originate  nothing;  but  they 
understand  the  actual,  they  apply  another  man's  orig- 
inal thought,  develop  and  improve  the  old,  execute 
much,  invent  little.  They  say  what  somebody  else 
said  and  thought  originally.  They  say  what  the  great 
mass  of  the  people  think  and  cannot  yet  say.  A  man 
of  this  sort  comes  very  close  to  the  outside  of  men. 
That  is  the  man  of  talent.  Speaking  practically,  tal- 
ent is  executive  power  in  its  various  modes ;  it  is  ability 
to  adapt  means  to  ends.  On  analysis,  you  find  it  is  not 
superior  power  of  instinct  and  spontaneous  intuition, 
but  only  superior  power  of  conscious  reflection,  power 
to  know  by  intellectual  process,  to  calculate,  and  to  ex- 
press the  knowledge  and  the  calculation.  It  is  a  great 
gift,  no  doubt.  It  is  men  of  gi'eat  talent  who  seem 
to  control  the  world,  for  they  occupy  the  headlands 
of  society.  In  a  nation  like  ours,  they  occupy  the 
high  positions  of  trade  and  politics,  of  literature, 
church,  and  state.  Talent  is  as  variable  in  its  modes 
of  manifestation  as  the  occupations  and  interests  of 
men.     There  may  be  talent  for  war,  for  productive  in' 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN  75 

dustry,  for  art,  philosophy,  poHtics,  also  for  religion. 
There  are  always  a  few  men  of  marked  talent  in  every 
community.  With  the  advance  of  mankind,  the  aver- 
age ability  continually  greatens;  it  is  immensely  more 
in  New  England  to-day  than  it  was  in  Palestine  two 
thousand  years  ago ;  but  the  number  who  overpass  the 
broad  level  which  mankind  stands  upon,  I  suppose, 
bears  about  the  same  ratio  at  all  seasons  to  the  whole 
mass.  Equality  in  rights,  with  great  diversity  in  pow- 
ers, seems  to  be  God's  law  everywhere. 

But  now  and  then  there  rises  up  a  quite  other  man. 
He  differs  from  his  fellows  in  quality  as  well  as  in  bulk, 
—  a  man  of  finer  material  and  nicer  make.  He  discov- 
ers new  things,  creates  new  forms  out  of  old  substance, 
or  new  substance  out  of  human  nature.  He  originates, 
thinks  what  no  man  ever  thought  before.  He  comes 
close  to  what  is  innennost  in  mankind,  and  not  only  tells 
what  you  and  I  thought  but  could  not  speak,  but  what 
we  felt  and  did  not  know.  So  he  not  only  provides 
words  for  unuttered  thoughts,  and  so  interprets  the  re- 
flection of  men,  but  furnishes  ideas  for  sentiments, 
and  so  makes  us  conscious  of  our  innermost  feeling. 
Thus  he  draws  nearer  to  mankind  than  the  other. 
Talent  comes  home  to  our  business,  genius  also  to  our 
bosom.  Out  of  dead  timber  the  man  of  talent  builds 
a  scaffold  for  a  house ;  out  of  live  nature  the  man  of 
genius  grows  a  great  green  forest,  whence  timber  shall 
be  cut  and  used  so  long  as  winds  blow,  and  leaves  are 
green.  Working  from  the  outside,  talent  weaves  a 
web,  stretching  the  warp,  putting  in  the  filling,  thread 
after  thread,  stamps  it  with  various  borrowed  forms, 
mechanically  colored.  That  is  well.  But  from  the 
germ  of  life,  genius  bodies  forth  a  plant,  which  grows 
from  within,  leaf  by  leaf,  branch  by  branch,  and  then 


76   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

opens  the  flower,  every  petal  developed  in  fragrant 
beauty,  and  matures  the  apple,  rounded  out  from  its 
central  genn  of  life,  curiously  painted,  but  all  the  work 
done  in  the  inside.  Talent  weaves,  genius  grows. 
One  paints  and  tricks  off  the  cheek  of  humanity  with 
white  and  vermilion,  laid  on  from  the  outside ;  from  the 
inside  the  other  beautifies  the  cheek  of  humanity  with 
blooming,  vari-colored  health.  One  is  art,  the  other  is 
life. 

The  man  of  genius  invents  and  originates,  making 
new  forms  out  of  the  commonest  material.  He  finds 
general  laws  in  facts  that  have  been  familiar  to  every- 
body since  the  world  was.  All  the  neighbors  in  Cro- 
tona  twenty-three  hundred  years  ago  heard  the  two 
village  blacksmiths  beat  the  anvil,  one  with  the  great 
hammer,  and  the  other  with  the  small  one ;  Pythagoras 
took  the  hint  from  that  rhythmic  beat,  and  brought 
the  harmonic  scale  of  music  out  from  the  blacksmith's 
"ten  pound  ten."  Every  boy  sees  that,  in  a  right- 
angled  triangle,  the  largest  side  is  opposite  the  square 
angle ;  but  Pythagoras  discovered  that  if  you  draw 
three  square  figures,  each  as  long  as  the  three  several 
sides  of  this  triangle,  the  largest  square  will  be  as  big 
as  both  the  others.  It  was  one  of  the  grandest  dis- 
coveries of  mathematical  science.  Every  priest  in  the 
Cathedral  of  Pisa  two  hundred  and  seventy  years  ago, 
and  all  the  women  and  children  at  Christmas,  saw  the 
great  lamps  which  hung  from  the  ceiling,  some  by  a 
longer,  and  some  by  a  shorter  chain;  they  saw  them 
swing  in  the  wind  that  came  in  with  the  crowd,  as  the 
Christmas  doors,  storied  all  over  with  medieval  fictions, 
were  opened  wide.  None  but  the  genius  of  Galileo 
saw  that  the  motion  of  these  swinging  lamps  was  always 
uniform  and  in  proportion  to  the  length  of  the  chains. 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN  77 

the  lamp  with  the  longest  chain  swinging  slowest,  and 
that  with  the  shortest  completing  quickest  its  vibra- 
tion. He  alone  saw  that  the  swinging  lamps  not  only 
distributed  light,  but  also  kept  time,  and  each  was  a 
great  clock  whereof  he  alone  had  the  dial,  and  the  hand 
pointed  to  the  hour  in  his  mind.  Nay,  for  five  hun- 
dred years  in  that  great  cathedral  these  lamps,  swing- 
ing slowly  to  and  fro,  had  been  proclaiming  the  law 
of  gravitation,  but  Galileo  was  the  first  man  who  heard 
it.  All  the  farmers  in  Cambridgeshire  saw  apples  fall 
every  autumn  day,  and  a  hundred  astronomers  scat- 
tered through  Europe  knew  that  the  earth  moved  round 
the  sun ;  but  only  one  man  by  his  genius  saw  that  the 
earth  moved  and  apples  fell  by  the  same  gravitation, 
and  obeyed  the  same  universal  law.  There  were  two  or 
three  thousand  ministers  in  England  two  hundred  years 
ago,  educated  men,  and  they  were  preaching  with  all 
their  might,  trying  to  make  the  popular  theology  go 
down  with  the  reluctant  Anglo-Saxon  people,  who  hate 
nonsense.  How  dull  their  sermons, —  telling  the  peo- 
ple that  man  was  a  stranger  and  pilgrim  on  earth,  with 
their  talk  about  Abraham's  faith  and  their  quotation 
from  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  How  dead  they  are 
now,  those  dreadful  seinnons  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury,—  save  here  and  there  a  magnificent  word  from 
Jeremy  Taylor  or  Robert  South !  How  dead  they 
were  then, —  abortive  sermons,  that  died  before  they 
were  spoken !  But  a  common  tinker,  with  no  educa- 
tion, often  in  low  company,  hated  for  being  religious, 
and  for  more  than  twelve  years  shut  up  in  a  jail, 
writes  therein  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  which  makes 
Calvinism  popular,  and  is  still  the  most  living  book 
which  got  writ  in  that  century  of  England's  great 
men,  when  Shakespeare  and  Milton  and  Herbert  and 


78   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

Bacon  and  Taylor  were  cradled  in  her  arms.  Adam 
Smith  takes  the  common  facts  known  to  all  gazetteers, 
the  national  income  and  expenditures,  and  exports  and 
imports,  manufactures,  the  increase  of  population,  etc., 
and  by  his  genius  sees  the  law  of  political  economy,  and 
makes  national  housekeeping  into  science.  Shakes- 
peare picks  up  the  common  talk  of  the  village,  what 
happens  to  everybody,  birth,  love,  hope,  fear,  sorrow, 
death,  and  then  what  marvelous  tragedies  does  he  make 
out  of  the  drama  of  every  man's  life !  They  tell  a 
story  of  a  man  in  Greece,  who,  one  day,  walking  along 
the  seashore,  picked  up  the  empty  shell  of  a  tortoise, 
with  a  few  of  the  tendons  still  left,  and  found  it  gave 
a  musical  note  as  he  touched  it ;  he  then  drew  threads 
across  it  from  side  to  side,  and  out  of  the  corded  shell 
invented  musical  instruments.  Fire  and  water  are  as 
old  as  creation,  and  have  been  in  man's  hands  some 
thirty  or  forty  thousand  years,  I  suppose ;  there  was 
not  a  savage  nation  in  Asia  or  America  but  had  them. 
Men  have  married  these  two  antagonistic  elements  to- 
gether for  many  a  thousand  years,  and  water  boils. 
But  from  these  two  Robert  Fulton  breeds  a  giant  who 
is  the  mightiest  servant  of  mankind,  altering  the  face 
of  nature  and  the  destination  of  man.  Every  chemist 
knew  that  certain  substances  were  sensitive  to  light, 
and  changed  their  color  by  day ;  nay,  every  farmer's 
daughter  knew  that  March  wind  and  May  sun  made 
cloth  white  and  faces  brown.  But  Niepce  and  Da- 
guerre  had  such  genius  that  they  took  advantage  of 
this  fact,  and  set  the  sun  to  paint  pictures  in  forty 
seconds.  King  Charlemagne  not  being  able  to  write 
when  called  upon  to  sign  his  name,  daubed  his  palm 
from  the  ink-horn,  and  put  his  hand  on  the  document, 
the  great  sign-manual  of  that  giant  emperor.     Nay, 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN  79 

five  hundred  years  before  Moses,  kings  had  seals  with 
their  names  engraven  thereon,  and  stamped  them  on 
wax.  Thirty-five  hundred  years  later,  the  genius  of 
Faustus  puts  together  a  thousand  of  these  seals,  a 
letter  on  each,  and  therefrom  makes  a  printed  Bible. 
How  hard  they  tugged  at  the  bow-string  and  plied  the 
catapult,  to  knock  down  the  walls  of  a  town  in  the 
middle  ages.  Schwartz  makes  gunpowder,  and  cross- 
bows and  catapults  go  out  of  fashion. 

These  are  men  of  genius ;  men  of  talent  could  never 
have  accomplished  these  results  which  I  have  men- 
tioned. These  are  the  men  who  really  command  the 
world,  the  original  thinkers.  There  are  not  a  great 
many  of  them.  It  seems  necessary  that  seven-eighths 
of  man's  life  shall  be  routine,  doing  to-day  what  we  did 
yesterday,  the  same  old  thing  over  and  over  again. 
But  now  and  then  the  great  God  raises  up  one  man  of 
genius  in  a  million,  who  shovels  away  the  snow,  and 
makes  a  path  where  all  men  can  walk,  clean-footed  and 
dry-shod.     Let  us  reverence  these  men. 

Speaking  practically,  genius  is  power  of  construc- 
tion, power  to  originate  and  create  new  forms  out  of 
old  matter,  new  matter  out  of  human  nature.  Speak- 
ing philosophically,  or  by  analysis,  genius  is  great 
power  of  instinct,  spontaneous  intuition.  That  is  the 
element  of  necessity,  as  it  were,  in  genius.  It  is,  next, 
great  power  of  conscious  reflection,  great  imagination 
in  its  greatest  forms,  great  attention,  the  power  to 
bend  all  the  faculties  to  the  special  task  in  hand. 
This  is  the  element  of  freedom  in  genius.  Genius 
knows  the  thing  which  it  works  upon  and  produces ; 
not  always  does  it  know  itself.  The  same  man  is 
seldom  s^^nthetic  to  create,  and  analytic  to  explain  the 
process  of  creation.     Homer  and  Shakespeare  know 


80   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

how  to  make  poetry,  but  not  how  they  make  it ;  the  art, 
not  the  analytic  explanation.  Yet  others  have  the 
genius  for  self-knowledge,  power  of  analytic  conscious- 
ness ;  but  it  is  not  often  that  the  poet  and  the  philoso- 
pher lodge  in  the  same  body.  This  human  house  of 
clay  is  not  large  nor  strongly  walled  enough,  nor  nice 
enough,  to  entertain  two  such  royal  guests.  Human 
nature  is  too  great  to  be  made  perfect,  all  parts  of  it, 
in  a  single  man ; 

"  One  science  only  will  one  genius  fit, 
So  vast  is  art,  so  narrow  human  wit." 

As,  analytically  speaking,  genius  is  power  of  in- 
stinctive intuition,  and  power  of  conscious  reflection, 
so  practically  it  is  the  highest  power  of  work,  power 
of  spontaneous  work,  power  of  voluntary  work ;  and 
it  is  this  which  unites  the  womanly  intuition  with  manly 
reflection.     Genius  is  God's  highest  gift  to  man. 

One  common  delusion  of  young  men  is  that  they 
have  genius,  and  that  a  man  of  genius  need  not  work, 
but  can  accomplish  great  results  with  small  efforts. 
Hence  an  ambitious  young  mechanic  sometimes  thinks 
he  can  get  to  the  top  of  the  ladder,  without  stepping 
on  any  of  the  rounds ;  and  the  ambitious  young  trader 
scorns  the  systematic  and  sober  diligence  of  his  father, 
and  hopes  to  make  a  fortune  at  a  stroke,  and  get  his 
pile  of  gold  in  a  few  years,  and  not  be  a  lifetime  about 
it.  "  Nothing  venture,  nothing  have,"  says  he  con- 
temptuously, and  on  his  tall  borrowed  horse  he  rides 
into  Chancery.  So  the  young  scholar  hopes  to  ac- 
complish every  thing  by  genius  at  a  dash,  to  learn 
science  without  any  study,  to  master  a  language  by 
the  inspiration  of  wine.  But  nothing  comes  of  noth- 
ing. 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN  81 

Real  genius  is  power  of  work ;  hard  work  of  intui- 
tion, hard  work  of  reflection,  and  a  great  deal  of  it. 
Nobody  doubts  the  genius  of  Lord  Bacon.  England 
never  saw  a  harder  working  man.  "  Newton  saw  the 
apple  fall  from  the  tree,  and  therein  discovered  grav- 
itation," says  some  thoughtless  young  man.  The 
apple  fell  from  the  tree  one  day,  but  it  was  twenty 
years  before  Newton's  great  branches  shook  down  grav- 
itation ;  it  was  twenty  years  of  hard  work,  often  six- 
teen hours  out  of  the  twenty-four,  sometimes  twenty- 
four  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four.  The  great  poetic 
souls,  the  Shakespeares,  Miltons,  Goethes,  were  men 
of  mighty  genius ;  they  were  men  of  mighty  industry 
also ;  and  if  Cuvier  and  Laplace  have  the  power  of 
insight,  they  make  the  most  zealous  use  of  it. 

Now  genius  appears  in  as  many  diverse  fonns  as 
there  are  human  occupations  and  interests.  Some  have 
a  genius  for  war,  and  are  great  fighters, —  the  Alex- 
anders, Hannibals,  Caesars,  Attilas,  Fredericks,  Na- 
poleons, and  the  rest  of  the  masters  in  this  dreadful 
art  to  kill.  It  was  once  the  most  honored  of  all ;  it  is 
far  too  much  honored  to-day.  Others  have  genius 
for  practical  industry,  the  creation  of  use;  genius  for 
agriculture,  cattle-keeping,  mechanic  arts,  navigation, 
and  commerce.  This  form  of  genius  has  hitherto  been 
but  little  honored,  but  is  now  getting  the  respect  of 
the  most  enlightened  nations.  Some  have  a  genius  for 
art,  the  creation  of  beauty, —  music,  painting,  sculp- 
ture, architecture.  These  are  forms  of  genius  which 
get  honored  long  before  the  power  of  productive  in- 
dustry is  much  respected,  for  man  adorns  himself  be- 
fore he  provides  for  his  comfort,  tattoos  his  skin  before 
he  weaves  a  coat  to  cover  it.     This  class  of  men  who 

have  a  genius  for  art  are  the  most  honored  to-day  by 
XI— 6 


82      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

the  educated  portion  of  mankind,  the  world  round. 
Then  there  is  another  department  of  genius,  for  phi- 
losophy, physics  in  its  various  departments,  meta- 
physics, and  theology.  There  is  a  progressive  venera- 
tion for  the  great  philosophers.  Once  they,  like  Anax- 
agoras,  fled  out  of  the  city,  or,  like  Socrates,  were 
poisoned  in  it;  for  as  they  were  the  bane  of  tyrants, 
so  they  were  the  prey  of  tyrants,  all  round  the  world. 
Others  have  genius  for  politics, —  the  application  of 
ideas  to  human  affairs,  the  organization  of  masses  of 
men,  and  the  administration  of  that  organization. 
This  is  a  very  high  mode  of  genius,  always  valued 
from  the  earliest  days,  and  never  too  much.  Lastly, 
there  is  genius  for  religion ;  for  piety,  to  feel  and 
know  God;  for  morality,  to  know  and  keep  His  laws. 
With  the  instinctive  mass  of  men,  genius  for  religion 
is  valued  far  above  all  the  rest,  because  the  man  who 
has  it  incarnates  in  himself  the  instinct  of  mankind, 
brings  it  to  their  consciousness,  puts  it  into  form,  and 
is  a  leader  of  men  in  departments  deemed  by  humanity 
most  important  of  all.  Now  in  the  progress  of  man- 
kind, the  higher  powers  of  instinct  and  reflection  are 
continually  developed,  and  so  higher  and  higher  forms 
of  genius  arise. 

Once  all  great  genius  was  thought  miraculous  and 
divine.  The  poet  called  himself  the  Muse's  son,  and 
the  priest  said  God  came  and  told  him  the  bright 
thought  that  entered  his  head.  Now  it  is  no  longer 
wonderful. 

The  man  of  a  high  mode  of  genius  has  great  power 
of  instinct,  and  so  he  feels  the  sentiment  of  humanity 
which  you  and  I  feel,  only  he  feels  it  first,  feels  it 
strongest ;  he  outruns  the  instinctive  mass  of  men,  and 
in  advance  of  them  gets  new  justice,  new  piety;  and  so 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN  83 

he  is  more  popular  than  the  people  are,  for  he  knows 
what  they  only  feel,  and  he  feels  to-day  what  they  will 
feel  the  next  year  or  the  next  millennium ;  and  that 
is  the  reason  why  the  man  of  the  highest  form  of 
genius  is  always  so  dear  to  the  heart  of  humanity,  to 
the  instinctive  masses  of  men,  not  to  those  who  have 
poorly  educated  but  a  single  faculty.  Scholars  say 
the  people  cannot  understand  a  man  of  genius ;  but 
it  is  in  the  bosom  of  the  people  that  the  man  of  genius 
makes  his  nest  and  rears  his  young.  He  has  power 
of  reflection,  and  so  is  master  of  his  instinct,  not  its 
slave.  He  also  translates  the  common  feeling,  which 
he  shares,  into  thought,  and  common  thought  into 
speech,  and  makes  the  nation  conscious  of  what  it  felt 
and  did  not  know  at  all.  This  power  of  reflection 
makes  him  master  of  men,  but  his  power  of  instinct 
keeps  him  our  brother  still.  Great  talent  seems  to 
separate  the  scholar  from  the  mass  of  toilsome  men,  and 
he  looks  down  with  scorn  on  the  smith,  the  potter,  and 
the  weaver,  and  says  with  the  old  man  in  Ecclesias- 
ticus,  "  All  these  glory  in  the  work  of  their  hands ; 
but  they  shall  not  be  sought  for  in  the  public  council, 
nor  sit  high  in  the  congregation ;  they  shall  not  sit 
in  the  judge's  seat,  nor  understand  the  sentence  of 
judgment."  But  great  genius  in  its  highest  modes 
unites  men ;  we  feel  nearer  to  one  who  has  it  than  to 
our  mother's  son ;  he  is  more  we  than  we  are  ourselves. 
Hence  the  popularity  of  the  man  of  genius.  He  does 
not  separate  himself  from  men,  but  says  "  Suff^er 
little  children  to  come  unto  me,  and  forbid  them  not." 
"  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden, 
and  I  will  give  j^ou  rest."  "  I  am  not  come  to  be  min- 
istered unto,  but  to  minister."  He  goes  to  the  lost 
sheep.     He  is  the  good  physician  to  the  sick,  the  friend 


84.   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

of  publicans   and   sinners.     The   great  genius   is   the 
Son  of  Man. 

Now  each  great  gift  is  a  trust  from  God.  The 
function  of  the  man  of  great  genius  is  to  do  for  the 
rest  what  thej  cannot  do  for  themselves.  Every  fac- 
ulty that  man  has  is  amenable  to  the  conscience  and 
God's  law,  and  is  to  be  used  for  its  owner's  advantage, 
but  for  mankind's  behoof  not  less.  The  great  genius 
for  war  is  to  defend  his  nation,  not  enslave  it  and  man- 
kind, as  the  Csesars  and  Napoleons  have  done.  Whoso 
has  genius  for  productive  industry  must  serve  man- 
kind, will  he  or  not,  for  his  invention  shall  one  day  be 
the  property  of  all.  If  a  man  have  a  genius  for  ac- 
quisition, the  commonest  in  mankind,  he  is  bound  to  use 
it  like  a  brother,  and  not  like  a  brute ;  and  what  a 
service  he  may  thus  render  to  mankind  by  the  Christian 
use  of  his  masterly  power !  This  is  an  age  when 
genius  for  trade  is  honored  above  all  other  forms. 
Let  the  trade  be  a  religious  sacrament,  a  communion  of 
man  with  man,  for  their  joint  good,  not  for  one  man's 
blessing  and  another's  harm.  If  a  man  have  the  mer- 
cantile genius  or  talent  of  Girard  or  Astor,  what  a  debt 
he  owes  to  mankind !  What  if  Raphael  had  painted 
for  his  own  eye,  and  then  burned  up  his  pictures ; 
what  if  Shakespeare  had  written  dramas  for  his  family 
and  a  few  friends ;  what  if  Newton  had  shown  his  dia- 
grams and  calculations  to  the  great  gownsmen  at  Cam- 
bridge, and  then  destroyed  them  ;  —  it  would  not  be  at 
all  more  selfish  than  the  course  of  the  merchant,  scholar, 
tradesman,  or  politician,  who  works  for  himself,  and 
himself  alone.  I  wish  men  knew  the  true  use  of  great 
talents,  the  true  use  of  the  money  they  therewith  ac- 
cumulate. The  function  of  men  of  great  genius  for 
philosophy,  letters,  art,  is  to  educate  mankind.     Such 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN  85 

a  one  is  to  point  out  the  errors  of  the  popular  creed, 
and  indicate  new  truths.  And  what  immense  services 
have  been  rendered  by  men  of  great  mind  who  have 
devoted  their  energies  to  this  work;  those,  for  exam- 
ple, who  have  exposed  the  errors  of  the  heathen  myth- 
ology, or  those  who  have  exposed  the  follies  of  the 
Christian  mythology, —  the  Martin  Luthers  who  fig- 
ured in  the  sixteenth  century,  the  philosophers  and 
freethinkers  of  the  seventeenth,  eighteenth,  and  nine- 
teenth centuries.  Such  men  are  sent  into  the  world 
as  soldiers  of  humanity ;  if  they  strike  against  man,  not 
for  man,  how  great  is  their  condemnation !  There 
is  a  long  line  of  men  of  philosophic  genius,  who  have 
sought  to  educate  the  people,  to  free  them  from  super- 
stition, vices  of  body  and  spirit,  noble  souls,  who  in 
the  service  of  humanity  died  that  you  and  I  might  live ; 
kings  and  priests  burned  them  at  the  stake,  cut  off 
their  heads,  and  over  ground  once  slippery  with  their 
blood  we  walk  secure.  So  a  man  of  great  poetic  genius 
or  eloquence, —  how  much  does  he  owe  to  mankind ! 
What  if  he  turns  off  from  humanity's  eyes,  and  never 
sees  nor  sings  the  highest  word  of  mankind's  joy  or 
woe !  We  drop  a  tear  on  the  not  religious  brow  of 
Shakespeare.  But  when  a  man  dedicates  his  pen  to  lust 
and  wine,  and  ribald  mock  and  scoff,  it  is  the  greatest 
charity  that  can  say  to  a  Byron,  "  Neither  do  I  con- 
demn thee ;  go  and  sin  no  more."  What  evil  a  wicked 
man  of  talent,  still  more  of  genius,  can  perpetrate  in 
his  age ;  but  what  service  a  man  of  great  poetic  genius 
can  render !  INIilton  marred  his  poetry  by  that  ghastly 
theology  which  he  taught ;  no  man  can  love  his  idea  of 
God.  But  what  service  he  rendered  to  mankind  by 
his  love  of  freedom,  and  the  high,  brave  morals  he 
taught !     How    has    Mr.    Wordsworth    cultivated    the 


86   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

sweetest  virtues  in  his  garden  of  the  Muses,  which  is 
also  a  garden  of  Christian  literature.  How  much  has 
Mr.  Hood  done  by  his  two  songs,  "  The  Song  of  the 
Shirt,"  and  "  The  Bridge  of  Sighs."  How  much  Mr. 
Dickens  has  accomplished,  with  this  humanity  in  his 
great,  generous  heart.  America  has  one  man  of  lit- 
erary genius,  far  surpassing  all  her  other  sons,  both 
philosopher  and  poet,  though  with  something  of  the 
lack  of  the  accomplishment  of  verse ;  a  man  who  never 
appeals  to  a  mean  motive,  who  uplifts  and  inspires, 
while  he  gladdens  and  bears  men  heavenward  on  his 
swift,  free  wings,  as  white  and  clean  as  snow. 

The  highest  of  all  forms  of  genius,  God's  noblest 
gift,  is  genius  for  religion, —  piety,  the  ideal  love  of 
God ;  morality,  the  keeping  of  every  law ;  philan- 
thropy, the  love  of  men.  Hitherto  this  has  been  the 
rarest  of  gifts.  But  now  and  then  such  a  one  comes 
up  from  the  instinctive  mass  of  mankind,  an  Elias,  a 
Moses,  or  a  Jesus. 

The  Greeks  had  a  natural  talent  for  philosophy  and 
art, —  the  genius  for  science,  literature,  and  beauty  of 
old  times  sloping  up  towards  Aristotle,  ^Eschylus,  and 
Phidias.  The  Hebrews  had  a  national  talent  for  re- 
ligion,—  no  science,  no  literature  like  that  of  the 
Greeks,  no  art ;  but  the  fruits  of  their  religious  con- 
sciousness are  treasured  up  for  all  times,  sloping  up 
towards  the  measure  of  the  perfect  man.  Greece  bore 
Homer  and  Aristotle ;  mightiest  in  science  this,  chief  est 
that  in  song.  Palestine  bore  Moses  and  Jesus, —  the 
last,  to  my  eye,  the  greatest  religious  genius  of  all 
time.  Starting  from  the  Hebrew  soil,  he  roots  into 
the  national  traditions ;  but  his  flower  is  human  sub- 
stance on  the  Hebrew  stem.  He  shared  much  of  the 
superstition  of  his  time,  its   mistaken  philosophy,  its 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN  87 

limited  notion  of  God,   of  man,  and  of  the  relation 
between  the  two ;  he  taught  an  eternal  devil,  an  angry 
God,  and  an  endless  hell.     Tliat  was  the  dust  of  Jeru- 
salem blown  into  his  flower,  the  eavesdropping  from 
the  synagogue  or  temple.     But  his  great  genius  for 
religion  saw  religion  as  love,  the  mystic  love  within, 
the  active  love  without.     His  genius  for    philosophy, 
power  of  reflection,  separated  him  from  the  creeds  of 
the  doctors  of  law.     His  genius  for  humanity,  power 
of  instinct,  made  him  despise  the  practice  of  such  as 
say  and  do  not,  make  long  prayers,  and  devour  widows' 
houses  in  private.     He  would  have  mercy,  and  not  sac- 
rifice.   Too  far  before  men  for  their  comprehension,  too 
far  above  them  for  their  sympathy,  what  could  they  do 
but  crucify  him.''     The  most  educated  class  hated  him; 
but  "  the  common  people  heard  him  gladly," —  because 
he  had  the  great  instinct  of  humanity  in  his  heart,  and 
preached  it  to  their  consciousness.     Men  felt  the  pres- 
ence of  a  great  man,  and  with  the  instinctive  loyalty  of 
mankind  they  adorned  him  with  the  best  they  could 
off'er;  the  gewgaws  of  their  fancy  they  put  about  his 
name,  called  him  the  son  of  David,  and  the  Messiah; 
told  miracles  about  him ;  nay,  the  multitude  cut  down 
branches  from  the  trees,  and  strewed  them,  with  their 
garments,  in  the  way ;  and  ere  long  they  called  him 
God.     Poor  Attleborough  jewels  are  all  these,  but  the 
best  that  humanity  could  offer.     One  day  mankind  will 
drop  these  fancies,  and  we  shall  look  on  the  majestic 
features   of  that   Hebrew   man,  radiant  all  over  with 
humanity,  and  speaking  still  his  highest  word, —  love 
to  God,  and  love  to  man.     All  notions  of  his  miracu- 
lous conception,  birth,  death,  and  life,  will  vanish  away, 
the  fancied  God  give  place  to  the  real  man,  and  the 
great  services  of  his  genius  and  life  be  plain  to  all 
men. 


88      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 
man's  nature  a  prophecy  of  eternal  growth 

I  wonder  at  the  beauty  of  this  world.  I  am  amazed 
before  a  Httle  flakelet  of  snow,  at  its  loveHness,  at  the 
strangeness  of  its  geometry,  its  combination  of  angles, 
at  the  marvelous  chemistry  which  brought  these  curious 
atoms  together.  I  reverence  the  Infinite  God,  who 
made  the  ocean,  earth,  air,  three  sister  graces,  for 
handmaids  to  attend  this  fledgling  of  the  sky.  I  look 
up  and  wonder  at  the  stars ;  I  am  astonished  at  the 
beauty  of  that  great  constellation  Orion,  which  every 
night  unveils  its  majestic  forehead  to  the  eyes  of  men. 
I  study  its  nebula  with  a  telescope,  and  it  resolves 
itself  to  stars  so  distant  that  those  mighty  orbs  seem 
but  flakes  of  cloud  to  the  unassisted  eye.  In  fancy 
I  clothe  them  with  verdure,  trees  of  their  own,  and 
people  them  with  beasts,  birds,  fishes,  insects,  and  the 
like.  I  have  confidence  in  the  laws  which  lead  and 
guide  them,  and  they  are  a  great  revelation  of  the 
omnipotence  of  God.  But  I  compare  them  with  man, 
with  spirit,  its  laws,  its  powers,  its  imperial  duration, 
and  its  faculty  of  unbounded  growth, —  and  Orion, 
with  its  nebula,  seen  to  be  stars,  is  as  much  inferior 
to  man  as  that  snowflake  to  the  constellation.  And 
when  I  reflect  upon  this  world  of  consciousness,  the 
powers  bom  in  us, —  which  seem  but  as  flakelets  of  a 
cloud  now,  but  which,  seen  through  my  telescopic  faith 
in  God,  resolve  themselves  into  stars  too  distant  to  be 
seen,  and  only  dimly  brought  to  consciousness  in 
such  a  soul  as  Christ's, —  then  I  forget  the  constellation 
and  all  the  starry  beauty  of  the  world,  forget  the  joy 
of  trust  that  constellation  taught,  and  find  delight 
in  that  higher  joy  and  nobler  trust  which  my  own 
nature  has  revealed  to  me. 


Ill 

TRAITS  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS  OF 
HUMAN  CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT 

THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL  MAN 

In  a  crowded  city  you  see  the  multitude  of  men 
going  to  and  fro,  each  on  his  several  errand  of  business 
or  pleasure ;  you  see  the  shops,  so  busy  and  so  full ; 
the  ships,  so  many  and  of  such  great  cost,  going  so  far 
and  sailing  so  swift ;  you  are  told  so  many  thousand 
men  lodge  each  night  underneath  the  city  roofs,  and 
every  morning  so  many  thousand  more  come  here  to 
join  the  doing  and  the  driving  of  the  town,  and  depart 
thence  at  night.  You  look  at  all  this  manifold  doing 
and  driving,  the  great  stream  of  activity  that  runs  up 
and  down  the  streets  and  lanes,  and  you  think  how 
very  unimportant,  insignificant  even,  is  any  one  man. 
Yonder  dandy,  say  you,  who  has  just  blossomed  out  of 
the  tailor's  window,  a  summer  tulip  transplanted  to  the 
sidewalk,  might  drop  through,  and  never  be  missed ; 
so  might  that  little  shrinking  maiden,  sober  as  a  violet, 
going  to  her  work  in  a  milliner's  or  bookbinder's  shop. 
Who  would  ever  miss  these  two  grains  of  dust  if  they 
got  blown  off.''  You  think  of  the  conventions  to  make 
constitutions,  of  the  general  assemblies,  of  the  million 
of  men  who  compose  Massachusetts,  then  of  the  courts 
and  congresses  and  laws  of  this  nation,  its  three  and 
twenty  millions  of  men, —  and  how  insignificant  ap- 
pears the  little  village  we  stand  in.  You  think  of  the 
whole  world  of  nations,  with  its  fleets,  armies,  cities, 
towns,  the  enonnous  amount  of  property  which  belongs 
to  the  world, —  for  mankind  is  a  rich  old  fellow, —  you 

89 


90   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

think  of  all  the  laws  and  constitutions,  democratically 
writ  on  parchment,  or  else  despotically  incarnated  in 
a  Nicholas  or  a  Grand  Turk,  you  think  of  the  ten 
hundred  millions  of  men  on  the  earth, —  and  what  is 
America,  the  individual  nation?  It  is  one  drop  in  the 
pitcher;  it  might  drop  out,  and  nobody  would  miss  it. 
What  is  Boston,  an  individual  town?  It  might  cave 
in  to-morrow,  and  the  world  care  nothing  for  the  loss, 
—  only  one  farthing  gone  out  of  the  inexhaustible 
riches  of  the  human  race.  What  am  I,  say  you,  an 
individual  man?  I  might  die  outright,  and  what  odds 
would  it  make  to  the  world?  Of  what  consequence 
is  it  to  mankind  that  I  am  faithful  or  not?  whether 
I  sell  brandy  or  bread?  whether  I  kidnap  men  or  make 
honest  neat's  leather  into  honest  shoes?  I  am  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousandth  part  of  Boston,  one 
twenty-three  millionth  part  of  America,  one  thousand 
millionth  part  of  the  whole  human  race ;  —  what  a  con- 
temptible vulgar  fraction  of  humanity  is  that,  at  its 
best  estate !  If  all  the  world  of  men  were  brought  to- 
gether, who  would  miss  me  when  the  poll  of  the  human 
race  was  taken?  I  shall  never  much  influence  the 
general  product  of  mankind,  let  God  add,  or  subtract, 
or  multiply,  or  divide  me  as  He  sees  fit.  What  a 
ridiculous  figure  am  I !  I  have  a  few  faculties,  a  little 
wit,  a  little  justice,  a  small  amount  of  benevolence, 
reaching  to  my  next  neighbor,  and  a  little  beyond ;  a 
modicum  of  trust  in  God.  What  are  these  amongst 
so  many?  Let  me  give  up.  Man  has  no  need  of  this 
one  thousand  millionth  part  of  the  family,  and  God 
will  never  miss  me.  The  individual  is  nothing  in  this 
vast  sum  of  forces,  social,  ecclesiastical,  political,  and 
human. 

It  does  seem  so  at  first.     The  individual  man  seems 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  91 

of  very  small  consequence ;  and  so  a  man  loses  himself 
in  a  great  city,  cares  little  for  his  own  individuality, 
and  is  content  to  be  a  fraction  of  the  mass ;  so  much 
of  the  Whig  party,  so  much  of  the  Democratic  party, 
so  much  of  some  other  party ;  a  little  fraction  of  Amer- 
ica, and  a  little  vulgar  fraction  of  the  human  race. 

When  you  come  home  and  look  into  the  cradle,  or  on 
her  who  sits  at  its  side,  when  j'ou  meet  your  gray-haired 
father,  or  your  mother  venerable  and  old,  when  you  take 
brother  and  sister  by  the  hand,  or  put  your  arm  about 
one  best  beloved, —  then  all  this  is  changed,  and  the 
individual  seems  of  importance,  and  the  greatest  mass 
only  the  tool  thereof.  "  What  a  nice  world  it  is  !  "  says 
young  Romeo  to  younger  Juliet,  as  he  gives  her  the 
first  evening  primrose  of  the  summer.  "  The  world 
was  made  for  you  and  me,"  sweetly  coo  they  to  one 
another,  "  on  purpose  to  produce  this  very  primrose." 
To  each  Lorenzo,  what  is  all  the  crowd  of  Venice,  what 
are  its  palaces  and  works  of  art,  its  laws,  or  its  com- 
mercial hand  that  reached  through  the  world,  com- 
pared with  his  single  individual  Jessica?  To  him  they 
seem  but  servants  to  attend  her.  Even  the  moonlight 
which  "  sleeps  upon  the  bank,"  and  the  "  heaven  thick 
inlaid  with  patines  of  bright  gold,"  seem  only  designed 
by  Heaven  to  serve  and  comfort  her.  "  The  golden 
atoms  of  the  day  "  are  only  powders  to  enrich  her 
hair. 

When  you  study  the  action  and  the  final  result  of 
this  doing  and  driving  in  a  great  busy  town  like  Bos- 
ton,—  the  shops  so  many  and  so  full,  the  ships  so 
costly,  going  so  far  and  so  fast, —  of  the  thousands 
that  lodge  under  the  roof-tree  of  the  town,  and  the 
thousands  more  that  do  business  in  the  streets, —  when 
you   think   of  the   laws,  the   social  and   political   ma- 


9a  THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

chlnery,  and  all  the  riches  of  this  wealthy  world, — 
you  sec  that  the  ultimate  function  of  it  all  is  to  pro- 
duce an  individual  man,  and  to  serve  him.  For  this 
do  men  build  the  sovereigns  of  the  seas  and  the  kings 
of  the  clippers, —  enormous  ships,  nobody  comprehends 
how  big.  Such  is  the  end  of  all  this  wonderful  ap- 
paratus, the  institutions  and  customs  of  the  community, 
the  constitutions  and  laws  of  the  State,  the  dogmas 
and  rituals  of  the  Church.  For  this  men  build  great 
halls  to  regale  matron  and  man  and  maid  with  music; 
for  this  swells  up  the  great  dome  of  Saint  Peter's, 
or  Strassburg  Cathedral  lifts  its  finger-tower  clear  up 
into  the  sky.  All  is  to  report  its  progress,  and  the  final 
result,  at  the  fireside  and  the  cradle,  and  it  is  valuable 
or  worthless  just  as  it  tells  in  the  consciousness  and  the 
character  of  the  individual  man.  Even  young  Mr. 
Tulip,  the  dandy,  is  of  more  consequence  than  all  the 
gaudy  garments  he  has  bought  at  his  tailor's ;  and 
modest  Miss  Violet  is  worth  more  than  all  the  velvets 
of  Genoa  and  Lyons,  all  the  laces  ever  made  at  Mechlin, 
Brussels,  and  Louvain.  They  are  her  tools  to  serve 
her ;  she  is  not  for  them.  Omnipotence  works  for  every 
man,  age  out  and  age  in,  century  after  century.  Mr. 
Erskine  said  the  highest  function  of  the  English  Par- 
liament was  to  put  twelve  honest  men  in  a  jury-box. 
He  might  have  brought  it  to  the  smallest  point,  and 
said  the  highest  function  of  the  English  Parliament, 
and  every  other  legislative  and  executive  body,  is  to 
make  John  and  Jane  the  best  man  and  woman  it  is 
possible  for  them  to  be. 

In  looking  at  great  things,  at  multitudes  of  men,  at 
the  great  social  forces  of  the  world,  we  forget  the  im- 
portance of  the  individual  man,  and  are  content  to 
sacrifice  him  to  the  great  purposes  of  the  human  race, 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  93 

or  of  some  nation.  jNIerchants  often  think  it  is  of  no 
great  consequence  what  becomes  of  the  sailors,  if  trade 
only  flourish.  So  the  forecastle  may  be  very  unwhole- 
some and  narrow,  but  the  hold  for  the  goods  must  be 
roomy  and  ventilated  well.  The  manufacturer  thinks 
the  same  of  the  operative,  and  so  sacrifices  the  human 
end  to  the  material  means.  Thus  it  comes  to  pass 
that  things  get  in  the  saddle  and  ride  mankind,  and 
man  is  sacrificed,  the  individual  cut  down  to  suit  the 
great  commercial  interest.  The  farmer  is  sacrificed 
to  his  ditch.  His  meadow  has  got  a  new  ditch,  and 
he  a  new  rheumatism  to  remember  it  by.  Here  is  a 
man  of  a  large  pattern,  brave  and  manly  by  nature,  who 
does  nothing  but  buy  and  sell.  He  buys  and  sells  all 
the  week;  he  cannot  dine  with  his  wife,  sees  his  children 
only  as  dogs  lap  water  on  the  Nile,  as  quickl}^  as  possi- 
ble, fearing  the  crocodiles  will  snap  them  in.  On  Sun- 
day he  is  getting  ready  to  buy  and  sell  the  next  morn- 
ing. He  has  no  time  to  read  or  think.  His  fortune 
goes  up,  and  he  himself  is  at  the  other  end  of  the  beam, 
and  goes  down  just  in  proportion.  It  is  plain  that 
this  man  practically  thinks  he  is  of  much  less  import- 
ance than  his  estate ;  otherwise  he  would  take  more 
pains  to  be  a  man  than  to  get  a  million  of  money,  and 
would  know  that  buying  and  selling  and  getting  a  for- 
tune are  not  the  end  of  human  life ;  they  are  only  the 
means  thereto. 

Napoleon  the  First  was  a  great  man,  in  the  common 
modes  of  greatness ;  a  very  small  man  in  the  modes  of 
greatness  represented  by  the  blessed  soul  that  fills  the 
pages  of  the  New  Testament.  But  what  is  the  best 
thing  he  could  carry  out  of  the  world?  Fame  he  left 
behind  him,  and  it  is  likely  that  to-day  he  has  no  more 
advantage  from  his  reputation  on  earth  than  the  sorri- 


94   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

est  ass-driver  ever  cradled  in  his  native  Corsica.  The 
sexton  at  Saint  Martin  tolled  the  bells  of  the  village  at 
noon  on  the  day  when  Napoleon  wheeled  his  army  round 
the  corner  of  the  road  that  sweeps  over  the  Simplon. 
The  jow  of  the  bell  went  booming  up  the  mountain, 
and  was  heard  a  league  off,  it  may  be ;  and  the  neat- 
herd and  shepherd,  hearing  it,  said  to  himself,  "  Hans 
and  Jean  are  pulling  at  the  rope  now.  What  great 
men  they  must  be  to  make  themselves  heard  from  the 
parish  church,  all  up  the  mountain,  a  league  round." 
Napoleon  had  a  reputation  that  filled  the  world;  every 
shot  from  his  cannon  was  heard  from  the  North  Cape 
to  Gibraltar;  and  even  now  his  reputation  goes  round 
the  world.  But  Hans's  and  Jean's  reputation  is  worth 
as  much  to  them  to-day  as  Napoleon's  is  to  him.  His 
power  over  men  slipped  through  his  hands  long  before 
death  took  him,  and  the  riches  of  the  man  who  gave 
away  empires  and  distributed  crowns,  gave  him  six 
cubic  feet  of  earth  at  last.  His  power,  wealth,  and 
fame  were  only  his  apparatus  for  manufacturing  hu- 
man character  out  of  human  nature.  The  business  of 
Bridget  and  Rosanna,  scrubbing  in  a  kitchen,  the  busi- 
ness of  Thomas  and  Charles,  making  shoes  or  cutting 
stone,  is  the  same  to  them,  perhaps  of  quite  as  much 
value,  as  Napoleon's  dealing  with  kings  was  to  him. 
Our  special  calling,  that  of  cook  in  the  caboose  of  a 
ship,  or  of  king  on  the  throne  of  Spain,  Prussia,  Swe- 
den, is  only  the  frame  on  which  we  stretch  out  the 
blank  canvas  of  human  nature,  thereon  to  work  out 
such  a  pattern  of  ideal  character  as  we  will  or  can. 
One  day  Death  passes  by  the  window ;  I  look  out,  he 
sees  me ;  the  frame  breaks  to  pieces,  the  web  floats  out, 
and  goes  up  to  God,  carrying  therewith  my  work,  well 
done  or  ill  done,  bad  pattern  or  good  one,  as  I  have 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  95 

made.  The  frame  is  all  gone,  only  the  pattern  as- 
cends. Amos  and  Robert  go  out  of  the  world,  leaving; 
millions  of  money  and  a  high  name.  John  and  Han- 
nah will  one  day  depart,  leaving  no  millions  of  money, 
no  great  name ;  but  the  great  Divine  Providence  will 
ask  the  same  question  of  each  one  of  the  four, — ■ 
"What  are  you,  my  little  child?  How  faithful  have 
you  been  to  your  individual  soul  and  material  circum- 
stances? What  have  you  made  out  of  these  things 
that  I  gave  you?  "  That  will  alike  be  asked  of  Im- 
perial Nicholas  and  the  man  who  polishes  his  boots: 
and  the  shoe-brush  may  do  for  one  of  them  what  the 
scepter  does  for  the  other.  God  is  no  respecter  of 
either ;  he  takes  the  character,  achieved  by  the  use  of 
the  one  or  the  bearing  of  the  other,  asking  no  questions 
beyond  that. 

Great  Michael  Angelo,  out  of  Parian  stone  or  Car- 
rara marble,  sculptured  many  a  statue,  which  stands  or 
sits  there  at  Florence  to  astonish  beholders, —  his  Dead 
Christ,  made  for  a  pope ;  his  Horned  Moses,  made  for 
some  cardinal ;  his  Day  and  Night,  for  the  republic  of 
Florence.  But  there  was  another  statue  that  Michael 
was  all  the  while  carving  and  working  out,  day  out  and 
day  in,  sculptured  out  of  spirit,  and  not  marble ;  and 
that  was  Michael  himself.  He  made  it  for  no  pope, 
no  cardinal,  no  republic  of  Florence ;  he  made  it  for 
himself  and  his  God,  and  carried  it  home  with  him 
to  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  You  and  I,  working  in 
our  several  spheres,  may  do  the  same  work,  and,  toiling 
for  earth,  toil  also  for  heaven ;  and  every  day's  work 
may  be  a  Jacob's  Ladder  reaching  up  nearer  to  our 
God. 


96  THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

CHARACTER 

Look  at  this  young  man.  He  is  building  up  his  for- 
tune, and  that  is  all  men  see,  and  they  praise  that,  and 
say  he  is  an  industrious  and  excellent  man,  and  will 
probably  be  rich.  I  see  and  respect  all  that  for  what 
it  is  worth.  But  behind  his  fortune  there  is  rising  up 
his  character,  stone  upon  stone,  brick  upon  brick,  story 
after  story ;  and  by  and  by  that  will  be  accomplished, 
and  the  great  angel  Death  will  come  and  pull  down 
that  scaffolding,  and  it  will  lie  there,  useful  once,  but 
idle  rubbish  now,  and  there  will  stand,  resting  on  the 
rock  of  ages  and  reaching  far  up  into  the  heavens, 
the  great  brave  character  which  the  man  has  built  in 
the  everlasting  sunlight  of  God,  itself  as  everlasting, 
and  always  as  fair. 

HUMAN   WELFARE 

I  have  often  wondered  that  men  who  are  so  greedy 
for  pleasure,  and  spend  so  much  time  in  making  ready 
what  they  reckon  the  outward  means  of  happiness, 
getting  money,  reputation,  office,  did  not  look  a  little 
deeper,  and  see  on  what  ultimate  conditions  human 
welfare  might  be  had,  even  the  highest  human  welfare. 
Merchants  sending  out  adventures  to  Manilla  or  to 
Nootka  Sound  make  diligent  inquiry  as  to  the  things 
needful  for  the  voyage,  and  the  special  merchandise 
which  they  will  venture  there.  Their  success  is  not 
all  luck ;  nay,  luck  is  the  smallest  part  of  it.  It  is  the 
result  of  good  sense  applied  to  trade.  Send  a  ship 
adrift  anywhere  into  the  ocean,  with  anything  thrust 
on  board,  it  does  not  bring  back  a  good  return.  A 
gardener,  seeking  to  rear  flowers  and  fruits,  hunts  the 
wide  world  over  so  as  to  get  the  fairest  and  the  sweet- 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  97 

est.  Then  he  studies  the  habits  of  every  plant,  learn- 
ing the  conditions  of  its  being,  and  its  well-being;  he 
fits  the  sun  and  soil  thereunto,  and  rears  his  magnolia, 
his  Amazonian  lily,  his  peach,  his  strawberry,  his  pear, 
his  grape,  his  plum. 

Why  should  not  you  and  I  likewise  study  the  means 
by  which  the  highest  human  blessedness  is  to  be  had, 
be  as  careful  merchants  of  happiness  as  of  wheat  and 
bricks  and  hemp?  And  why  should  we  not  plant  gar- 
dens of  delight  as  well  as  gardens  of  daisies  and  of 
com?  I  have  often  wondered  that  men  who  study 
many  a  science  do  not  study  the  science  of  human 
welfare ;  and  that  such  as  love  art,  and  would  give  the 
world,  if  they  had  it,  to  paint  Nature  as  she  is,  or  to 
sculpture  a  man  as  he  should  be,  do  not  study  this, 
which  is  the  loveliest  of  the  fine  arts,  the  art  of  con- 
structing human  blessedness.  If  thoughtful  men  took 
as  much  pains  with  the  voyage  through  time  as  the 
voyage  over  the  waters  to  Nootka  Sound  or  Manila, 
if  they  were  as  careful  of  this  great  garden  of  human 
life,  where  man  is  the  plant,  as  they  are  of  kitchen 
gardens  and  flower  gardens  and  nurseries, —  why,  what 
a  happy  world  we  might  have  of  it  here !  And  what  a 
great  horticultural  exhibition  of  human  blessedness  we 
might  have, —  not  every  Saturday,  as  the  gardeners' 
society,  but  every  day,  summer  and  winter,  and  all  the 
year  round. 

THE  COMMON  OCCUPATIONS  OF  LIFE  TO  BE 
HONORED 

The  common  callings  of  the  mass  of  men  are  the 

means  whereby  this  great  Son   of  God,  mankind,  the 

real  Christ  that  abideth  ever,  enters  upon  his  estate,  and 

gets  the  mastery  of  the  world.     To  me  therefore  these 

XI— 7 


98   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

occupations  of  every  day  are  what  the  vast  forces  which 
we  name  gravitation,  electricity,  vegetation,  and  life 
are.  A  woman  with  a  broom,  and  cradle,  a  needle,  a 
basketful  of  kitchen  tools,  and  a  few  dollars'  worth  of 
other  furniture  and  grocer's  wares,  pursuing  her  house- 
wifery, and  making  home  pleasant,  and  life  clean  and 
sweet  to  herself,  to  her  husband,  children,  brothers,  sis- 
ters, friends, —  is  to  me  a  spectacle  that  is  admirable 
and  delightful;  ay,  it  is  sublime.  Feeding  the  body, 
educating  the  spirit,  and  helping  humankind  to  get  the 
mastery  over  the  world,  she  is  weaving  that  Jacob's 
ladder  whereby  mankind  and  womankind  are  climbing 
up  to  God.  There  is  a  sublimity  in  common  things, 
even  in  what  we  call  vulgar.  Nay,  it  is  not  the  excep- 
tional things  in  life  which  are  the  noblest.  It  is  the 
every  day's  march  of  men  like  you  and  me ;  not  the  high 
lift  of  the  sudden  spring  of  rare  and  exceptional  per- 
sons. How  we  prize  the  relics  of  exceptional  men, — 
an  inkstand  of  Lord  Byron,  a  pen  of  Walter  Scott, 
the  sword  of  Oliver  Cromwell.  But  to  me  the  tools 
which  a  man  works  with  have  a  certain  sanctity  and 
venerableness  ;  the  hod  of  the  laborer,  the  smith's  forge- 
hammer,  partake  of  these.  A  wheelwright's  son  in  Old 
England  once  became  Archbishop  of  Canterbury ;  and 
in  his  library  he  kept  a  carriage  wheel  which  his  own 
hands  had  made  in  his  youth,  and  he  counted  it  as  an 
honorable  scutcheon,  and  showed  it  as  that  great  man's 
coat  of  arms.  He  never  did  a  wiser  nor  a  sublimer 
thing.  But  how  rarely  do  we  see  this.  It  is  only 
great  and  exceptional  men  who  are  commonly  thought 
to  have  lofty  and  dignified  vocations ;  and  the  rest  fol- 
low what  are  called  "  humble  callings."  But  the  civ- 
ilized world,  with  its  palaces,  its  libraries,  its  academies 
of  science,  and  its  galleries  of  art,  rests  on  the  solid 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  99 

slioulders  of  farmers  and  mechanics.  Let  them  with- 
draw, and  it  is  as  if  gravitation  itself  had  given  out  in 
the  center  of  the  world,  and  it  would  die  of  collapse. 
Sublimity  looks  very  gay  at  a  distance ;  you  come  near, 
and  you  find  its  garments  are  of  coarse  stuff;  and  it 
wears  a  hair  shirt  next  to  its  skin. 

The  lottery  of  honest  labor,  drawn  by  Time,  is  the 
only  one  whose  prizes  are  worth  taking  up  and  carry- 
ing home. 

Industry  is  the  business  of  man.  It  is  a  dignity, 
and  only  idleness  a  disgrace,  a  wrong,  and  curse. 
If  you  earn  nothing  by  head  or  hand,  heart  or  soul, 
then  you  are,  and  must  be,  a  beggar  or  a  thief,  and 
neither  pay  for  your  board  nor  lodging. 

FRIVOLITY 

I  do  not  know  which  is  the  saddest  sight  to  see, — 
the  housebreaker  and  the  harlot  in  jail,  or  the  frivolous 
voluptuary  in  his  saloon  or  coach.  I  do  not  know 
which  is  the  saddest  tale  to  read, —  the  Court  Journal, 
or  the  reports  of  trials  of  criminals.  I  do  not  know 
which  is  the  worst.  One  is  the  earnestness  of  rage  and 
want  and  lust :  the  other  is  the  frivolity  of  the  vain  and 
the  foolish.  At  one  extreme  of  society,  idlers,  loungers, 
careless  creatures  there  are,  as  heedless  as  flies,  and  as 
inert  for  any  work, —  the  golden  flies  of  wealth,  who 
live  and  move  and  have  their  ephcmereal  being  in  a 
whisper  of  fashion.  At  the  other  end  of  society  there 
are  persons  squalid  and  clad  in  rags,  who  are  harvested 
by  death  from  day  to  day,  and  who  are  just  as  idle,  just 
as  incompetent  for  any  work.  They  swarm  in  the  low 
parts  of  this  city,  wholly  incapable  of  any  effort.     No 


100      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

summer  wave  dashes  more  frivolous  than  they.  On 
both  of  these  classes  the  philosophical  philanthropist 
gazes  with  folded  arms, —  for  here  is  an  evil  which 
Orpheus  might  have  sung  to,  which  Moses  might  have 
thundered  and  lightened  upon,  and  which  Jesus  might 
have  prayed  for,  all  in  vain.  He  can  only  fold  his 
arms  and  wait  for  the  great  teacher  Death,  who  to 
the  little  and  great  laggard  of  frivolity  will  teach  the 
same  lesson  from  which  there  is  no  escape  in  either 
extreme  of  human  life.  Here  are  these  two  excep- 
tional classes  of  men ;  but  the  great  mass  of  the  people 
never  reach  either  of  these  extremes.  The  dregs  and 
the  foam  of  the  cup  of  human  life  differ  very  widely 
from  the  wine  which  lies  between. 

EARNESTNESS 

It  is  a  sad  sight  to  see  a  man  specially  earnest  in  his 
business,  but  a  frivolous  fop  in  every  thing  besides,  and 
in  morals  and  religion  a  mere  scorner.  One  day  the 
echo  of  his  mockery  will  come  back  to  the  walls  of 
the  world  which  he  has  defiled,  and  ring  through  his 
house,  which  will  seem  the  poorer  because  it  is  rich, 
and  emptier  because  it  is  so  full  of  merely  worldly 
wealth.  If  the  business  of  life  be  not  merely  to  gather 
gold  and  live  easy,  but  also  to  be  a  man,  having  a 
fourfold  manly  life  in  you, —  having  wisdom,  justice, 
love,  and  faith  in  God,  and  so  attaining  the  measure  of 
a  Christian  man,  then  you  must  not  only  be  earnest  in 
business,  but  have  a  general  earnestness  of  spirit  in  all 
that  concerns  your  inner  life.  Then  sometimes  in  our 
life  it  may  be  a  serious  question  for  us  to  ask,  "  What 
are  we  now,  and  what  are  we  doing  in  our  life.-*  Do 
we  live  the  earnest  life  of  the  Christian  man,  or  the 
mean  beggarly  life  of  nothing  but  the  flesh.''  "     That 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    101 

question  may  well  take  the  rose  out  of  the  young 
maiden's  or  young  man's  cheek,  and  the  thought  of 
it  make  the  old  man  turn  pale.  But  if  you  respect 
yourself,  and  know  you  are  here  to  become  a  man,  then 
howsoever  frivolous  in  trifles,  you  will  never  be  frivo- 
lous in  what  regards  the  integrity  of  your  own  soul ; 
but  be  ready  to  divest  yourself  of  the  respect  of  men, 
to  strip  yourself  of  property,  if  need  be,  in  order  that 
you  may  be  faithful  to  your  spirit. 

You  may  have  a  general  frivolity  of  character  and 
be  a  fop,  a  man  fop  or  a  woman  fop ;  not  of  dress  or 
manners  only,  but  in  your  whole  life.  With  a  special 
earnestness  you  may  get  gain  and  station.  But  to  be 
a  man,  to  be  a  Christian,  you  must  have  a  general  ear- 
nestness of  character  and  lay  a  special  emphasis  on 
what  concerns  your  higher  needs,  your  conscience,  your 
heart,  and  your  soul.  Then  all  this  grave  serenity  of 
the  heavens  above  us,  of  earth  under  our  feet,  of  ocean 
that  rolls  against  the  land,  will  serve  as  allies  in  our 
behalf;  and  all  the  events  of  the  world,  the  rise  and 
fall  of  states,  the  temptation  of  business,  the  tempta- 
tion of  politics,  the  temptation  of  the  church, —  all 
these  will  be  only  instruments  to  help  us  forward  in  our 
march  toward  manhood,  and  to  make  us  yet  more 
manly  and  Christian  men. 

KNOW-NOTHINGS 

In  the  town  of  Somewhere  lives  Mr.  Manygirls.  He 
Is  a  toilsome  merchant,  his  wife  a  hardworking  house- 
keeper. Once  they  were  poor,  now  they  are  ruinously 
rich.  They  have  seven  daughters,  whom  they  train  up 
in  utter  idleness.  They  are  all  do-nothings.  They 
spend  much  money,  but  not  in  works  of  humanity,  not 
even  in  elegant  accomplishments,  in  painting,  dancing, 


102   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

music,  and  the  like,  so  paying  in  spiritual  beauty  what 
they  take  in  material  use.  They  never  read  nor  sing; 
they  are  know-nothings,  and  only  walk  in  a  vain  show, 
as  useless  as  a  ghost,  and  as  ignorant  as  the  block 
on  which  their  bonnets  are  made.  Now,  these  seven 
"  ladies  " —  as  the  newspapers  call  the  poor  things,  so 
insignificant  and  helpless  —  are  not  only  idle,  earning 
nothing,  but  they  consume  much.  What  a  load  of 
finery  is  on  their  shoulders  and  heads  and  necks !  Mr. 
Manygirls  hires  many  men  and  women  to  wait  on  his 
daughters'  idleness,  and  these  servants  are  withdrawn 
from  the  productive  work  of  the  shop  or  the  farm,  and 
set  to  the  unproductive  work  of  nursing  these  seven 
great  grown-up  babies. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  way,  the  Hon.  Mr.  Many- 
boys  has  seven  sons,  who  are  the  exact  match  of  the 
merchant's  daughters, —  rich,  idle,  some  of  them  dis- 
solute, debauchery  coming  before  their  beard,  all  use- 
less, earning  nothing,  spending  much  and  wasting  more. 
Their  only  labor  is  to  kill  time,  and  in  summer  they 
emigrate  from  pond  to  pond,  from  lake  to  lake,  having 
a  fishing  line  with  a  worm  at  one  end,  and  a  fool  at  the 
other. 

These  are  the  "  first  families  "  in  Somewhere.  Their 
idleness  is  counted  pleasure ;  the  opinion  of  these  know- 
nothings  is  thought  wisdom ;  their  example  fashion ; 
their  life  the  reward  of  their  father's  toil.  Six  of  these 
sons  will  marry,  and  five,  perhaps,  of  Mr.  Manygirls' 
daughters ;  and  what  families  they  will  found,  to  live 
idly  on  the  toil  of  their  grandfathers'  bones,  until  a 
commercial  crisis,  or  the  wear  and  tear  of  time,  has 
dissipated  their  fortune,  and  they  are  forced,  reluc- 
tantly, to  toil! 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  103 

LIVES   OF   PLEASUEE 

I  recommend  no  sour  and  ascetic  life.  I  believe  not 
only  in  the  thorns  on  the  rose-bush,  but  in  the  roses 
which  the  thorns  defend.  Asceticism  is  the  child  of 
Sensuality  and  Superstition.  She  is  the  secret  mother 
of  many  a  secret  sin.  God,  when  he  made  man's  body, 
did  not  give  us  a  fiber  too  much  nor  a  passion  too  many. 
I  would  steal  no  violet  from  the  young  maiden's  bosom ; 
rather  would  I  fill  her  arms  with  more  fragrant  roses. 
But  a  life  merely  of  pleasure,  or  chiefly  of  pleasure,  is 
always  a  poor  and  worthless  life,  not  worth  the  living; 
always  unsatisfactory  in  its  course,  always  miserable  in 
its  end.  Read  the  literature  of  such  men,  from  Ana- 
creon  of  old  to  Anacreon  INIoore  of  our  times,  and  it 
is  the  most  unsatisfactory  literature  in  the  world. 
There  is  the  banquet,  and  the  wine  circles,  and  the 
flowers  are  gay ;  but  behind  all  these  is  the  emblematic 
coffin,  and  the  skeleton  stands  there  to  scare  the  man 
from  his  roses  and  his  cups.  No  lamentations  of  Jere- 
miah are  to  me  so  sad  as  the  literature  of  pleasure.  It 
is  well  to  be  ascetic  sooner  than  waste  your  life  in  idle 
joys.  The  earnestness  of  life  is  the  only  passport  to 
the  satisfaction  of  life. 

THE  QUALITY  OF  PLEASURE 

Let  amusements  fill  up  the  chinks  of  your  existence, 
not  the  great  spaces  thereof.  Let  your  pleasures  be 
taken  as  Daniel  took  his  prayer,  with  his  windows  open 
—  pleasures  which  need  not  cause  a  single  blush  on  an 
ingenuous  cheek. 

"  That  which  must  be  concealed  is  near  allied  to 
sin."  Heed  the  quality  of  your  joy.  A  single  rose 
is  a  fairer  ornament  than  a  whole  stack  of  straw. 


104   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

HUMAN  WRECKS 

Think  of  a  young  man  growing  up,  conquered  by 
his  appetites, —  the  soul  overlaid  by  the  body,  the 
smutch  of  shame  on  all  the  white  raiment  of  God's 
youthful  son,  who  can  stoop  the  pride  of  his  youth  so 
low,  and  be  a  trifler,  a  drunkard,  a  debauchee !  The 
mind  of  man  despises  it,  and  woman's  holy  soul  casts 
it  aside  with  scorn.  Stern  as  you  may  think  me,  and 
stem  I  surely  am,  I  can  only  weep  at  such  decay  as 
this, —  flowers  trod  down  by  swine,  the  rainbow  broken 
by  the  storm,  the  soul  prostrate  and  trampled  by  the 
body's  cruel  hoof. 

RETRIBUTION 

No  man  ever  sacrificed  his  sense  of  right  to  any 
thing,  to  lust  of  pleasure,  lust  of  money,  lust  of 
power,  or  lust  of  fame,  but  the  swift  feet  of  Justice 
overtook  him.  She  held  her  austere  court  within  his 
soul,  conducted  the  trial,  passed  sentence,  and  per- 
formed the  execution.  It  was  done  with  closed  doors ; 
nobody  saw  it,  only  that  unslumbering  Eye,  and  that 
man's  heart.  Nay,  perhaps  the  man  felt  it  not  him- 
self, but  only  shrunk  and  shriveled,  and  grew  less  and 
less,  one  day  to  fall,  with  lumbering  crash,  a  ruin  to 
the  ground. 

TEMPTATION  OF  THE  DEYIL 

Jesus  had  his  temptation  in  the  wilderness,  says  the 
New  Testament  story.  No  doubt  it  was  so.  But  he 
had  it  in  the  city  also,  in  house,  and  shop,  and  every- 
where else.  When  the  devil  finds  us  in  the  wilderness, 
and  single-handed  meets  us,  the  devil  alone,  and  we 
alone,  he  is  not  much  of  a  devil,  he  is  not  hard  to  put 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  105 

to  rout.  But  the  great  temptation  of  the  devil  is  when 
he  is  backed  by  interest  or  fashion,  and  meets  us  not 
alone,  but  in  the  crowd.  There  is  small  cause  to  fear 
the  devil  when  we  meet  him  alone,  but  the  devil  well 
attended  by  respectable  gentlemen, —  that  is  the  devil 
who  is  alarming.  The  devil  who  lies  in  ambush  under 
the  counter,  who  skulks  behind  a  bale  of  cotton,  or 
rings  money  in  your  ear,  or  rustles  gay  garments, — 
that  is  the  dangerous  devil,  and  fortunate  is  he  who 
sees  him  fall  as  lightning  from  heaven.  Nay,  that 
is  the  kind  that  goeth  not  out  but  by  manly  prayer 
and  manly  work. 

The  whole  sum  and  substance  of  human  history  may 
be  reduced  to  this  maxim, —  that  when  man  departs 
from  the  divine  means  of  reaching  the  divine  end,  he 
suffers  harm  and  loss. 

MANHOOD  LOST  OR  WON  IN  MATERIAL  PURSUITS 

How  many  men  of  business  do  I  know  whose  man- 
hood is  so  overlaid  with  work  that  they  can  do  no  more. 
"  I  will  have  an  estate,"  says  one,  "  and  then  I  can 
ride  on  it  and  get  my  manhood."  But,  alas !  it  is 
the  estate  which  rides  him,  and  not  he  who  rides, 
horsed  on  his  fortune.  This  carpenter  looks  to  me 
like  a  chip  or  shaving  of  humanity,  and  I  sometimes 
think  he  will  one  day  change  into  a  piece  of  wood. 
That  stone-mason  seems  to  be  in  the  process  of  petri- 
fying. Here  is  a  New  England  lumberman,  who 
deals  in  logs,  thinks  of  logs,  and  dreams  of  boards, 
planks,  joists,  and  scantlings.  He  might  make  out 
of  his  logs  a  plank-road,  and  ride  easily  on  towards 
the  kingdom  of  heaven ;  nay,  he  might  construct  a 
commodious  bridge  to  carry  him  over  many  a  deep 


106   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

gulf  in  that  road ;  but  instead  of  these,  they  are  only 
a  pile  of  lumber.  So  he  goes  on.  He  is  a  log  on  the 
stream,  floating  towards  the  sea  of  wealth,  slippery, 
unlovely  to  look  upon,  and  hopes  to  reach  that  end. 
By  and  by  Death  makes  a  long  arm,  and  catches  our 
floating  log,  and  he  stops  on  the  shore  to  perish  in 
material  rot.  Yonder  mother  has  become  a  child- 
keeper,  and  no  more.  She  has  been  that  so  long  that 
her  specialty  of  business  has  run  away  with  the  uni- 
versality of  the  woman ;  she  is  a  mother,  nurse,  house- 
keeper, that  is  all ;  mother  of  bodies,  housekeeper  to 
the  flesh,  nurse  to  matter,  not  to  the  soul  that  she  has 
cradled  in  her  arms.  There  goes  a  lawyer  who  seems 
to  be  made  of  cunning.  He  is  an  attorney  at  law ;  he 
might  also  have  been  a  man  at  law,  but  he  scorned  it, 
and  as  I  look  at  him  the  inner  comes  outward  to  my 
eye,  and  his  face  seems  only  a  parchment,  and  thereon 
is  engrossed  a  deed  of  sale,  so  much  for  so  much. 

It  is  very  sad  for  a  man  to  make  himself  servant  to 
a  thing,  his  manhood  all  taken  out  of  him  by  the 
hydraulic  pressure  of  excessive  business ;  but  how  com- 
mon it  is !  I  should  not  like  to  be  merely  a  great 
doctor,  a  great  lawyer,  a  great  minister,  a  great  pol- 
itician, I  should  like  to  be  also  something  of  a  man. 

Sometimes  this  excessive  devotion  to  business  is  a 
man's  misfortune,  and  not  at  all  his  fault.  Poverty 
compels  the  sacrifice  of  himself ;  and  in  such  a  case,  let 
us  not  condemn  him,  but  pity  the  condition,  and  ven- 
erate the  person.  It  has  sometimes  happened  that  a 
man  or  woman  must  forego  that  nice  culture  which 
nature  demanded,  and  devote  all  the  time  to  the  sup- 
port of  father,  mother,  brother,  or  family.  It  is  more 
frequently  so  with  women  than  men,  for  the  great 
burden   of  humanity   has    often  been   laid   upon   the 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    107 

shoulders  that  were  feeblest  to  bear  it.  Most  men  fail 
of  their  moral  development  by  the  attempt  to  extend 
their  own  self  too  far,  most  women  by  attempting  to 
contract  it  too  much.  Man's  selfishness  brings  him  to 
the  ground ;  woman  goes  astray  through  her  self- 
denial.  There  are  many  persons  whom  we  must  look 
upon  as  the  slain  and  crippled  of  war,  who  are  not 
the  victims  of  cannon-shot  and  bullets,  for  the  battle 
of  industry  has  also  its  martyrs. 

Sometimes  this  is  a  man's  fault,  not  his  misfortune. 
He  had  his  choice,  and  chose  money,  office,  reputation, 
rather  than  manhood.  To  me  this  is  a  sadder  sight 
than  to  see  a  man  stricken  on  the  red  field  of  hostile 
strife.  I  mourn  over  a  man  whom  violence  has  de- 
prived of  his  manhood ;  but  he  will  recover  that  on  the 
other  side  of  the  grave.  Still  more  do  I  mourn  over 
one  who  has  turned  traitor  against  himself,  and  plun- 
dered his  own  soul  of  his  manhood.  If  men  or  women 
determine  to  seek  in  daily  life  only  its  material  result, 
they  become  tools  of  business,  not  also  men  and  women 
at  their  several  callings.  But  if  a  farmer  will  take 
the  same  pains  to  raise  character  as  corn,  if  the  me- 
chanic will  manufacture  justice,  benevolence,  faith  in 
God,  such  shall  be  his  return.  If  the  trader,  in  buy- 
ing and  selling,  wishes  to  deal  in  "  charities  that  heal 
and  soothe  and  bless,"  they  shall  be  "  scattered  at  the 
good  man's  feet  like  flowers."  Would  he  traffic  in  the 
"  primal  virtues,"  they  shall  "  shine  aloft  as  stars  " 
which  never  set.  A  glorious  character  is  worth  whole 
crystal  palaces  crowded  full  of  material  riches  and 
beauty.  Yonder  tailor  is  making  garments  for  im- 
mortal life, —  clothing  you  and  me  with  coats,  but 
himself  with  an  angel's  robe.  That  shoemaker  who 
sits  in  his  shop,  drawing  his  quarters  and  sole  together. 


108   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

is  shod  with  the  sandals  of  salvation,  that  will  not  wear 
out  in  life's  slippery  road.  This  good  silversmith  is 
making  nothing  so  fair  as  his  own  character ;  there 
is  no  jewel  that  gleams  with  such  a  sparkle  in  his 
windows.  That  carpenter  is  making  cabinet-work  for 
heaven.  This  dealer  in  lumber  has  logs  that  form  into 
a  great  ship  of  life,  to  carry  him  over  the  sea  of  time, 
and  put  him  on  the  "  Islands  of  the  Blest."  That 
cook,  feeding  her  household,  is  getting  angels'  bread 
for  her  own  soul.  Yonder  housekeeper,  careful  and 
troubled  about  many  things,  has  yet  the  one  thing 
needful,  and  that  good  part  which  shall  not  be  taken 
from  her.  This  mother,  rocking  her  baby's  cradle, 
is  training  up  her  own  soul  for  immortal  life.  How 
rich  human  nature  is,  how  profitable  daily  life  may  be, 
how  joyous  its  spiritual  delights! 

Let  us  do  our  duty  in  our  shop,  or  our  kitchen,  the 
market,  the  street,  the  office,  the  school,  the  home,  just 
as  faithfully  as  if  we  stood  in  the  front  rank  of  some 
great  battle,  and  we  knew  that  victory  for  mankind 
depended  on  our  braver}'^,  strength,  and  skill.  When 
we  do  that,  the  humblest  of  us  will  be  serving  in  that 
great  army  which  achieves  the  welfare  of  the  world. 

Sometimes  we  say,  This  thing  is  not  right,  but  it  will 
do  in  the  long  run.  How  far  can  you  and  I  see? 
The  best  only  a  handbreadth.  How  clearly?  But 
with  exceeding  dimness.  We  say  it  will  last  our  time, 
and  so  serve  our  purpose.  Is  it  not  worth  while  to 
remember  that  our  time,  after  all,  is  eternity  ? 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  109 

AMOS  LAWRENCE 

Two  days  ago  there  died  in  this  city  a  man  rich  in 
money,  but  far  more  rich  in  manhood.  I  suppose  he 
had  his  faults,  his  deformities  of  character.  Of 
coui'se  he  had.  It  takes  many  men  to  make  up  a  com- 
plete man.  Humanity  is  so  wide  and  deep  that  all 
the  world  cannot  drink  it  dry. 

He  came  here  poor,  from  a  little  country  town. 
He  came  with  nothing  —  nothing  but  himself,  I  mean ; 
and  a  man  is  not  appraised,  only  taxed.  He  came 
obscure;  nobody  knew  Amos  Lawrence  forty-five 
years  ago,  nor  cared  whether  the  handkerchief  in  which 
he  carried  his  wardrobe,  trudging  to  town,  was  little 
or  large.  He  acquired  a  large  estate ;  got  it  by  in- 
dustry, forecast,  prudence,  thrift, —  honest  industry, 
forecast,  prudence,  thrift.  He  earned  what  he  got, 
and  a  great  deal  more.  He  was  proud  of  his 
life,  honorably  proud  that  he  had  made  his  own  for- 
tune, and  started  with  "  nothing  but  his  hands." 
Sometimes  he  took  gentlemen  to  Groton,  and  showed 
them  half  a  mile  of  stone  wall  which  the  boy  Amos  had 
laid  on  the  paternal  homestead.  That  was  something 
for  a  rich  merchant  to  be  proud  of. 

He  knew  what  few  men  understand, —  when  to  stop 
accumulating.  At  the  age  when  the  summer  of  pas- 
sion has  grown  cool,  and  the  winter  of  ambition  begins 
seriously  to  set  in ;  when  avarice,  and  love  of  power, 
of  distinction,  and  of  office,  begin  to  take  hold  of  men, 
when  the  leaves  of  instinctive  generosity  fall  off,  and 
the  selfish  bark  begins  to  tighten  about  the  man, — 
some  twenty  years  ago,  when  he  had  acquired  a  large 
estate,  he  said  to  himself,  "  Enough !  No  more  ac- 
cumulation of  that  sort  to  make  me  a  miser,  and  my 


no   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

children   worse   than   misers."     So   he    sought   to   use 
nobly  what  he  had  manfully  won.     He  didn't  keep 

"  A  brave  old  house,  at  a  bountiful  rate, 
With  half  a  score  of  servants  to  wait  at  the  gate." 

He  lived  comfortably,  but  discreetly. 

His  charity  was  greater  than  his  estate.  In  the  last 
twenty  or  thirty  years  he  has  given  away  to  the  poor 
a  larger  fortune  than  he  has  left  to  his  family.  But 
he  gave  with  as  much  wisdom  as  generosity.  His 
money  lengthened  his  arm,  because  he  had  a  good 
heart  in  his  bosom.  He  looked  up  his  old  customers, 
whom  he  had  known  in  his  poor  days,  which  were  their 
rich  ones, —  and  helped  them  in  their  need.  He  sought 
the  poor  of  this  city  and  its  neighborhood,  and  gave 
them  his  gold,  his  attention,  and  the  sympathy  of  his 
honest  heart.  He  prayed  for  the  poor,  but  he  prayed 
gold.  He  built  churches, —  not  for  his  own  sect  alone, 
for  he  had  piety  without  narrowness,  and  took  religion 
in  a  natural  way ;  —  churches  for  Methodists,  Bap- 
tists, Calvinists,  Unitarians,  for  poor,  oppressed  black 
men,  fugitive  slaves  in  Canada ;  nay,  more,  he  helped 
them  in  their  flight.  He  helped  colleges, —  gave  them 
libraries  and  philosophical  apparatus.  He  sought  out 
young  men  of  talents  and  character,  but  poor,  and 
struggling  for  education,  and  made  a  long  arm  to 
reach  down  to  their  need,  sending  parcels  of  books, 
pieces  of  cloth  to  make  a  scholar's  jacket  or  cloak,  or 
money  to  pay  the  term  bills.  He  lent  money,  when  the 
loan  was  better  than  the  gift.  That  bountiful  hand 
was  felt  on  the  shore  of  the  Pacific.  He  was  his  own 
executor,  and  the  trustee  of  his  own  charity  funds. 
He  did  not  leave  it  for  his  heirs  to  distribute  his  benev- 
olence at  their  cost;  at  his  own  cost  he  administered 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  111 

the  benefactions  of  his  testament.  At  the  end  of  a 
fortunate  year  he  once  found  thirty  thousand  dollars 
more  than  he  had  looked  for,  as  his  share  of  the  annual 
profits.  In  a  month  he  had  invested  it  all  —  in  vari- 
ous charities.  He  could  not  eat  his  morsel  alone,  the 
good  man. 

His  benevolence  came  out  also  in  smaller  things  in 
his  daily  life.  He  let  the  boys  cling  on  behind  his 
carriage, —  grown  mfen  did  so,  but  invisibly ;  he  gave 
sleigh-rides  to  boys  and  girls,  and  had  a  gentle  word 
and  kindly  smile  for  all  he  met. 

He  coveted  no  distinction.  He  had  no  title,  and 
was  not  a  "General,"  a  "  Colonel,"  a  "  Captain,"  or 
"  Honorable," —  only  plain  "  Mister,"  "  Esquire,"  and 
"  Deacon  "  at  the  end. 

His  charity  was  as  unostentatious  as  the  dew  in 
summer.  Blessing  the  giver  by  the  motive,  the  re- 
ceiver by  the  quicker  life  and  greener  growth,  it  made 
no  noise  in  falling  to  the  ground.  In  Boston, —  which 
suspiciously  scrutinizes  righteousness  with  the  same  e^^e 
which  blinks  at  the  most  hideous  profligacy,  though 
as  public  as  the  street, —  even  the  daily  press  never 
accused  his  charity  of  loving  to  be  looked  at. 

Of  good  judgment,  good  common  sense,  careful, 
exact,  methodical,  diligent,  he  was  not  a  man  of  great 
intellect.  He  had  no  uncommon  culture  of  the  under- 
standing or  the  imagination,  and  of  the  higher  reason 
still  less.  But  in  respect  of  the  greater  faculties, — 
in  respect  of  conscience,  aff'ection,  the  religious  ele- 
ment,—  he  was  well  bom,  well  bred,  eminently  well 
disciplined  by  himself. 

He  was  truly  a  religious  man.  I  do  not  mean  to 
say  he  thought  as  Calvin  or  Luther  thought,  or  be- 
lieved as  Peter,  James,  or  John.      Perhaps  he  believed 


112      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

some  things  which  the  apostles  never  thought  of,  and 
rejected  others  which  they  all  had  in  reverence.  When 
I  say  that  he  was  a  religious  man,  I  mean  that  he 
loved  God  and  loved  men.  He  had  no  more  doubt  that 
God  would  receive  him  to  heaven  than  that  he  himself 
would  make  all  men  happy  if  he  could.  Reverencing 
God,  he  reverenced  the  laws  of  God ;  —  I  mean  the 
natural  laws  of  morality,  the  laws  of  justice  and  of 
love.  His  religion  was  not  ascetic,  but  good-natured, 
and  of  a  cheerful  countenance.  His  piety  became 
morality.  The  first  rule  he  took  to  his  counting- 
house  was  the  Golden  Rule;  he  never  laid  it  by, — 
buying  and  selling  and  giving  by  that  standard  meas- 
ure. So  he  traveled  along,  on  that  path  which  widens 
and  brightens  as  it  leads  to  heaven. 

Here  was  a  man  who  knew  the  odds  between  the 
means  of  living  and  the  ends  of  life.  He  knew  the  true 
use  of  riches.  They  served  as  a  material  basis  for 
great  manly  excellence.  His  use  of  gold  was  a  power 
to  feed,  to  clothe,  to  house,  and  warm,  and  comfort, 
needy  men ;  a  power  to  educate  the  mind,  to  cheer  the 
affections,  to  bless  the  soul !  To  many  a  poor  boy, 
to  many  a  sad  mother,  he  gave  a  "  Merry  Christmas  " 
on  the  earth,  and  now,  in  due  time,  God  has  taken  him 
to  celebrate  Epiphany  and  New- Year's  Day  in  heaven ! 

Every  vice  meets  its  own  terrific  punishment.  What 
if  the  Honorable  Mr.  Devil  does  keep  his  coach  and 
six?  It  is  Mr.  Devil  who  rides  in  it  still,  and  no  six 
horses  will  ever  carry  him  away  from  himself.  What 
if  the  young  men  invite  him  to  sit  on  their  platforms, 
and  so  do  him  honor?  It  only  exhibits  his  devilship 
before  the  people  in  that  high  seat  —  his  character 
published  in  the  great  magnifying-glass  that  is  before 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  113 

him.     He    had    better    have    shrunk    into    the    lowest 
corner. 

CONTRASTS 

See  what  strange  contrasts  come  to  pass  in  our 
Christian  democracy  —  so  called.  I  do  not  refer  to 
particular  cases,  but  what  happens  every  year,  and 
many  times  a  year.  Here  is  a  bridal  party,  among 
the  wealthiest  of  a  great  city.  All  the  riches  of  food, 
furniture,  and  fashion  which  gold  can  purchase  are 
here  brought  together.  Here  is  the  highest  result  of 
New  England  civilization,  the  millionaires  of  money 
and  of  mind.  The  intellectual  buttei-fly  always  loves 
to  bask  and  sun  himself  in  the  golden  gleam  of  wealth. 
The  mechanics  who  built  the  house  where  they  are 
gathered  never  saw  the  inside  after  the  key  was  turned 
and  given  to  the  owner.  The  hodmen  who  bore  the 
bricks  up  the  tall  ladder  could  not  read  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  nor  write  their  names.  The  mariners  who  on 
the  ocean  sail  the  merchant-ships,  and  bring  home  the 
costly  wares  which  go  to  the  furnishing  of  the  house 
and  its  inmates,  are  rude  and  ignorant  men,  who  have 
only  a  brief  wrestle  with  the  triumphant  elements  under 
which  perhaps  they  at  last  go  down.  The  vine-dresser 
on  the  Rhine  who  carried  the  filthiest  substances  in  a 
basket  on  his  back  up  the  steep  terraces,  to  nourish 
the  choice  vintage  that  produced  the  wedding  wine,  is 
as  ignorant  as  the  hodman,  and  does  not  know  whether 
Boston  is  in  the  United  States,  or  the  United  States 
in  Boston.  What  beauty  of  dress  there  is ;  but  think 
of  the  Irish  women  who  dressed  the  flax  at  fourpence 
a  day,  finding  their  own  food  and  lodging.  Think 
of  the  lace-weavers  at  Brussels,  who  sit  in  cold  and 

moist  apartments, —  for  otherwise   the  thread  so  at- 

XI— 8 


114   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

tenuated  cannot  be  drawn  out, —  so  damp  that  con- 
sumption rides  in  the  air  and  mows  down  his  victims 
in  four  or  five  years.  Think  of  the  velvet-makers  at 
Lyons,  toihng  on  starvation  wages  for  a  single  New 
England  shilling  a  day ;  yet  men  of  better  culture  of 
intellect  than  the  wearers  of  the  garments  oftentimes. 
Think  of  the  bridal  veil,  the  cost  of  which  would  have 
supported  Bowditch  or  Franklin  at  Amherst  College 
for  a  whole  year.  "  Stiff  with  lavish  costliness,"  it 
is  worn  by  one  who  never  earned  a  farthing,  and  never 
will.     Think  of 

"  The  girl  whose  fingers  thin 
Wove  the  weary  broidery  in, 
Bending  backward  from  her  toil, 
Lest  her  tears  the  work  should  spoil, 
Shaping  from  her  bitter  thought 
Heart's-ease  and  Forget-me-not." 

Think  of  the  history  of  the  cotton,  every  fiber  of  it 
the  toil  of  a  slave ;  of  the  sugar-work  of  the  confec- 
tioner, every  crystal  of  it  pressed  out  of  the  Indian 
cane  by  a  slave.  Consider  the  work  of  the  painter  on 
the  wall,  who  toiled  in  a  garret  at  Rome,  having  noth- 
ing to  comfort  him  but  his  God  and  his  art,  who  at 
last  dies  of  genius  and  starvation,  unpitied,  unla- 
mented,  and  all  alone.  Consider  the  gay  entertain- 
ment, and  the  rude  ill-paid  persons  who  made  it, —  and 
the  tragic  face  of  Want  looks  out  from  the  comic 
mask  of  modem  wealth.  There  you  see  a  fair  picture 
of  civilization.  You  see  that  its  most  coveted  results 
are  shared  by  very  few,  though  produced  at  an  im- 
mense cost  to  mankind. 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  115 

MATERIAL  AND   SPIRITUAL  RICHES 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  hold  the  raiment  above  the 
body,  and  the  meat  more  than  the  soul  which  should 
consume  it.  The  millionaire  is  not  the  highest 
product  of  human  civilization.  A  rich  man,  a  rich 
city,  does  not  necessarily  possess  all  the  Christian 
virtues.  "  Money  answereth  all  things,"  says  the 
Bible  proverb ;  but  it  cannot  answer  for  honesty,  it 
will  never  do  for  virtue,  it  cannot  take  the  place  of 
confidence  in  Thy  higher  law,  Thou  Father  of  earth 
and  heaven!  Is  our  trade  conducted  on  fair,  just 
principles?  Does  the  Golden  Rule  lie  on  the  mer- 
chant's desk,  measuring  out  between  man  and  man  the 
rule  of  the  market?  Have  we  not  forgotten  God's 
higher  law?  Certainly,  we  overrate  wealth  to-day, 
just  as  our  fathers  thought  too  much  of  fighting. 
The  great  end  of  business  is  not  the  accumulation  of 
property,  but  the  formation  of  character.  "  He 
heapeth  up  riches,  and  knoweth  not  who  shall  gather 
them,"  says  the  Psalmist ;  but  great  virtues, —  pru- 
dence, wisdom,  justice,  benevolence,  piety, —  these  may 
be  gathered  from  your  trade;  they  are  not  uncertain 
riches,  but  imperishable,  undefiled,  and  they  fade  not 
away. 

Nature  has  dreadful  whips  for  men  who  are  seduced 
by  pleasure,  refined  or  gross,  drawn  away  from  the 
school-house  and  workshop  of  duty,  playing  truant, 
idling  away  time  and  life.  Trouble  comes  to  bring 
them  back.  That  great  sheep-dog  lies  near  by  the 
flock ;  huge,  shaggy,  red-eyed,  wide-mouthed,  with 
mighty  jaws,  he  is  never  far  away. 


116   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

SILENT  WITNESSES 
"  Joseph  is  a  good  boy,"  says  his  mother,  "  he  never 
threw  a  stone  at  the  pigeons  before.  You  did  not 
mean  to  hit  them,  did  you,  dear?  "  It  is  the  mother's 
only  son,  and  he  never  did  a  naughty  thing.  But  I 
notice  that  all  the  hens  and  turkeys  about  the  house 
run  off  when  he  draws  near,  and  that  the  great 
speckled  cockerel  never  crows  till  that  little  imp  has 
gone  by ;  and  that  when  he  walks  through  the  pastures 
all  the  cows  keep  at  a  safe  distance.  These  witnesses 
were  not  summoned,  but  they  came  into  court  of  their 
own  accord,  and  their  testimony  convicts  the  mother's 
little  darling,  who  "  never  threw  a  stone  at  a  pigeon 
before." 

Wealth  and  want  equally  harden  the  heart,  as  frost 
and  fire  are  both  alike  alien  to  the  human  flesh.  Fam- 
ine and  gluttony  alike  drive  nature  away  from  the  heart 
of  man. 

THE  MODERN  DEVIL 

The  mythological  devil  of  times  past  has  almost 
vanished  from  the  earth.  We  rarely  hear  of  him  now. 
But  the  real  devil  of  our  time  —  what  is  that?  Very 
different  is  he  from  our  fathers'  devil,  who  was  afraid 
of  a  church  in  daylight,  and  slunk  off,  and  was  afraid 
to  look  at  a  Bible.  The  modern  New  England  devil 
is  respectable,  and  does  all  things  decently  and  in  order. 
His  brutal  hoofs  and  savage  horns  and  beastly  tail 
are  all  there,  only  discreetly  hid  under  a  dress  which 
any  gentleman  might  wear.  They  do  not  appear  in 
his  body,  but  in  his  face ;  you  can  see  them  there, 
though  he  does   not  mean  3'ou   should.     He  rides   in 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    117 

the  streets,  and  appears  at  public  meetings,  and  pre- 
sides, at  least  is  one  of  the  vice-presidents.  He  is 
always  on  the  side  of  the  majority,  or  means  to  be. 
He  does  not  like  the  majority,  but  he  likes  their  power; 
he  loves  nobody  but  himself.  He  has  large  under- 
standing, not  large  reason  or  imagination ;  has  no  wis- 
dom, but  a  deal  of  cunning.  He  has  great  power  of 
speech,  and  can  argue  your  heart  out  of  your  bosom. 
He  cares  nothing  for  truth,  only  for  the  counterfeit 
of  truth.  He  is  well  educated ;  knows  as  much  as  it 
is  profitable  for  the  devil  to  know,  not  truth,  but 
plausible  lies.  He  knows  most  men  are  selfish,  and 
thinks  all  are.  He  knoAvs  men  are  fond  of  pleas- 
ure in  youth,  and  power  in  age,  and  that  they  can  be 
cheated  and  wheedled,  most  of  them.  That  is  the  chief 
philosophy  the  New  England  devil  knows,  all  he  wishes 
to  know.  He  is  cruel,  sly,  has  a  good  deal  of  power 
to  manage  men,  to  suit  his  burdens  to  their  shoulders. 
He  thinks  piety  and  goodness  are  nonsense;  he  never 
says  so.  His  religion  is  church-going, —  for  now  the 
devil  has  learned  a  trick  worth  two  of  his  old  ones. 
He  is  always  in  his  pew,  with  a  neat  Bible  nicely 
clasped,  with  a  cross  on  the  side  of  it, —  for  he  is  not 
afraid  of  the  cross,  as  the  old  devil  was.  He  fixes  his 
cold,  hard  eye  on  the  minister,  and  twists  his  mouth 
into  its  Sunday  contortions.  He  has  read  the  Bridge- 
water  Treatises,  and  Paley's  Theology  and  Morality ; 
he  knows  the  "  Evidences  "  like  a  doctor  of  divinity, 
and  he  must  not  doubt  the  casting  of  the  devils  into 
the  swine, —  nor  would  you  doubt  it  if  j^ou  saw  him ; 
he  knows  God  commanded  Abraham  to  sacrifice  Isaac, 
and  that  it  was  his  duty  to  do  it.  He  is  a  life-member 
of  the  Bible  Society,  takes  tracts  without  stint,  and 
reads  the  theological  journals  as  Job's  leviathan  swal- 


118   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

lowed  the  water.  He  sees  no  evil  in  slavery ;  it  is 
a  patriarchal  institution,  a  divine  ordinance,  useful  to 
Christianize  the  world.  Pauperism  is  not  to  be  found 
fault  with ;  that  also  is  divine, —  for  did  not  Jesus  say, 
*'  The  poor  ye  have  always  with  you  "  ? 

"  Yet  he  is  always  found 
Among  your  ten  and  twenty  pound  subscribers, 
Your  benefactors  in  the  newspapers." 

Sometimes  he  writes  a  book  on  religion.  He  is  often 
with  the  minister,  attends  all  the  ordinances  of  religion, 
and  every  form  of  sacrament ;  pays  bountiful  pew- 
taxes  ;  all  his  children  are  baptized  with  water.  The 
minister  thinks  he  is  the  very  Evangelist,  the  chief  pil- 
lar of  his  church,  and  wonders  why  he  was  not  a  clergy- 
man, but  concludes  that  he  thought  he  could  do  more 
good  in  a  broader  field.  He  loves  to  have  the  minister 
preach  on  doctrines ;  against  Jews,  Infidels,  Transcen- 
dentalists,  and  other  heathens ;  to  have  him  preach  on 
the  Bible,  on  the  Beauty  of  Holiness,  on  Salvation  by 
Faith  ( and  without  works )  —  a  very  dear  doctrine ; 
on  the  necessity  and  advantages  of  Revelation,  on  the 
Miracles,  on  the  Blessedness  of  the  Righteous.  But 
let  not  the  minister  demand  righteousness  of  his  parish, 
nor  insist  on  piety  in  the  young  man's  bosom,  or  the 
old  man's  heart.  Let  him  never  rebuke  a  sin  that  is 
popular,  never  differ  from  popular  opinion,  popular 
law,  popular  charity,  popular  religion.  It  will  hurt 
his  usefulness,  and  injure  his  reputation,  and  persons 
will  not  go  to  his  church.  Our  church-going  devil  has 
no  belief  in  God,  man,  or  his  own  immortality.  He 
has  no  truth,  justice,  love,  and  faith,  and  is  all  the 
worse  because  he  seems  to  have  them ;  and  so  he  wants 
morality,  but  no  justice;  society,  but  no  love;  a  church 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  119 

with  no  righteousness  on  man's  part,  and  none  on 
God's  part ;  religion  without  piety  and  goodness ;  he 
wants  a  minister  to  manage  a  machine.  "  There  is 
no  higher  law,"  says  he  to  the  minister ;  "  we  must 
keep  the  laws  of  the  land, —  except  the  laws  against 
usury,  intemperance,  gambling,  and  the  law  demand- 
ing you  shall  pay  your  proportion  of  the  taxes ;  these 
laws  were  made  for  poor  men,  not  for  us."  And  our 
devil  with  his  horns  smites  down  the  poor,  and  with 
his  hoofs  breaks  them  into  fragments,  and  with  his  tail 
sweeps  them  away. 

This  is  the  devil  of  our  times.  He  worships  the 
trinity  of  money,  the  gold  eagle,  the  silver  dollar,  and 
the  copper  cent, —  his  triune  god.  He  goes  about 
seeking  whom  he  may  devour,  transformed  into  a 
Pharisee.  He  meets  lads  at  college,  and  breathes  into 
their  ears,  and  the  leprous  shell  of  the  hunker  grows 
over  the  sophomore.  Then  farewell  to  your  manhood, 
young  man !  The  devil  has  made  out  your  diploma, 
and  you  will  die  in  your  contracting  shell.  So  the 
Mexican  robbers  meet  a  man,  plunder  him,  and  then 
sew  him  up  in  the  skin  of  an  ox,  newly  killed  for  that 
purpose ;  the  supple  skin  fits  closely  to  the  man's  form, 
and  in  that  fiery  sun  it  dries  and  contracts,  and  kills 
him  with  a  thirsty  and  lingering  and  horrid  death. 

Our  Yankee  devil  meets  girls  at  school,  and  pours  his 
leprous  distilment  into  their  ears.  Then  farewell  con- 
science, poor  maiden !  The  roses  may  bloom  on  your 
cheek,  but  religion  is  out  of  your  heart ;  decency  is  to 
be  your  morality.  You  may  marr}^  but  you  must 
never  love ;  and  if  you  do,  only  with  3^our  flesh,  for 
you  have  no  heart  to  love  with.  You  are  to  rebuke 
philanthropy  as  fanaticism,  and  piety  you  are  to  over- 
come, and  call  superstition.     Good  taste  is  to  be  your 


120   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

accomplishment ;  dress  and  dinner  are  to  be  your  sacra- 
ment and  communion  in  both  kinds.  No  angel  of 
religion  shall  ever  illumine  your  heart;  you  shall  have 
ice  for  your  comforter ;  and  in  that  cold  wintry  sorrow 
to  which  we  must  all  come,  your  diamond  jewels  will 
be  great  comfort  in  that  hour ! 

Our  devil  meets  the  politician,  and  takes  him  with 
his  cold,  clammy  hand,  and  says,  "  There  is  no  higher 
law.  Never  try  to  cure  an  evil  so  long  as  you  can  make 
it  serve  you  and  your  party."  He  meets  the  minister, 
and  here  his  influence  is  worse  than  anywhere  else. 
He  tells  him,  "  Public  opinion  is  better  than  the  eternal 
law  of  the  Father;  the  aprobation  of  your  parish 
(hunkers  and  Pharisees  though  they  be)  is  above  the 
approbation  of  God.  Salary, —  it  is  certain  good ; 
salvation, —  it  is  a  whim.  Never  be  righteous  over- 
much. Use  men  to  serve  you,  and  not  yourself  to 
serve  them ;  the  less  you  serve  men,  the  more  they  will 
obey  you ;  a  crown  is  better  than  a  cross.  Dear  Mister 
Minister,  you  need  not  rebuke  any  popular  sin ;  the 
sinners  are  always  the  best  judges  of  what  is  sin;  so 
leave  it  to  them."  The  poor  man  after  that  stands 
in  his  pulpit,  with  no  conscience  and  heart  and  soul 
in  him,  and  profanes  the  Bible  by  reading  it,  and 
mumbles  over  his  prayers,  which  are  almost  ghostly, 
and  had  better  be  turned  by  a  windmill  than  uttered 
by  his  poor  voice. 

The  devil  meets  all  men  with  this  counsel, —  "  Prefer 
your  pleasure  to  the  comfort  of  your  brother  men ; 
prefer  your  comfort  to  their  imperious  necessity. 
Conscience  is  a  whim  of  your  fancy ;  religion  is  church 
ceremony ;  piety,  sitting  at  prayers ;  charity,  public 
almsgiving;  heaven  and  immortality,  a  silly  trick,  but 
useful  for  the  million  men ;  disturb  them  not,  but  enter 
not  into  the  delusion." 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    121 

This  is  the  devil  of  New  England  to-day ;  not  one 
that  slinks  round  by  moonlight,  but  that  seeks  the  day, 
the  broad  street.  He  is  not  an  open  mocker,  but  a 
sly  and  cunning  Pharisee.  Be  warned  of  him,  O 
young  man,  O  young  maiden !  He  will  meet  you  at 
school  and  college,  in  the  parlor,  the  shop,  the  count- 
ing-house, the  court-house,  the  office,  and  the  church, 
and  will  sift  you  as  wheat,  and  you  shall  be  blown  off 
as  chaff  if  you  do  not  heed,  for  he  is  seeking  for  your 
soul.  In  the  period  of  passion  he  will  seek  to  put  a 
worm  into  your  virtue,  and  cut  off  its  fragrance ;  look 
for  no  roses  where  he  has  been.  In  the  period  of  am- 
bition, he  will  tell  you  all  is  fair  in  trade,  and  in  politics 
all  is  well  that  ends  well.  Ay,  where  is  the  end?  The 
end  of  self-abasement,  what  is  that? 

This  is  the  devilishest  of  devils, —  earthly,  sensual, 
devilish. 

COURAGE 

A  man  must  needs  have  a  courage  which  comes  of 
his  faith  in  God.  There  are  various  things  which  pass 
by  that  name.  There  is  the  courage  of  the  murderer, 
who  at  noonday  or  at  midnight  strikes  down  his  vic- 
tim. There  is  the  courage  of  the  lawmaker,  who  in 
the  face  of  the  nation,  consciously,  wilfully  tramples 
under  foot  the  sacred  safeguards  of  human  right, 
and  treads  down  what  is  holy,  to  make  mischief  by 
statute,  and  bring  human  law  into  contempt.  There 
is  the  courage  of  a  Judge  Jeffreys,  who  sets  the  law 
of  man  at  defiance,  and  scorns  and  spits  upon  the  law 
of  God,  to  serve  the  rage  of  a  brutal  king.  All  these 
forms  have  their  admirers,  and  the  last  two  are  sure 
to  be  applauded  in  Church  and  State  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  as  they  were  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth. 


122   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

There  is  a  courage  which  comes  of  firm  muscles,  of 
nerves  not  over-delicate,  which  has  its  value ;  and  I 
would  not  underrate  that  sort,  purely  physical  though 
it  be.  But  the  cool,  calm  courage  which  comes  of 
self-respect,  of  earnestness  of  purpose  through  faith 
in  God,  is  quite  a  different  thing.  That  is  a  courage 
which  can  labor  only  by  just  and  right  means.  That 
is  a  courage  also  that  can  wait.  That  is  a  courage 
that  can  suffer  with  a  "  Father,  not  my  will,  but  thine 
be  done."  There  is  a  courage  that  is  noisy,  that  is 
superficial,  that  stirs  men,  and  makes  them  shout, 
flushes  the  cheek,  and  fires  the  eye.  But  the  courage 
that  comes  of  earnestness  of  purpose  and  self-respect 
walks  still  in  the  street,  and  remembers  there  is  an  Eye 
that  is  on  the  man,  and  that  is  a  courage  that  will  not 
shrink, 

MORAL  COURAGE 

We  hate  to  be  in  a  minority.  But  the  brave  man, 
in  his  own  soul,  intimate  with  God,  will  always  try 
himself  by  the  pure  eyes  and  perfect  witness  of  the 
all- judging  God.  He  will  ask,  not.  What  will  men 
admire.?  but,  What  will  God  approve?  There  have 
always  been  times  which  tried  men's  souls,  and  never 
more  than  now.  You  and  I  may  be  called  on  any  day 
to  forsake  father  and  mother,  and  stand  in  a  minority 
of  one,  with  nobody  to  approve  us  but  God.  Such 
social  trials  are  far  harder  to  bear  than  to  stand  in  a 
battle-field;  but  with  the  witness  of  your  own  heart, 
and  God's  approbation,  you  are  blessed  indeed,  and 
may  still  possess  your  portion  in  content,  having  more 
than  twelve  legions  of  angels  about  you,  even  the 
Father  with  you.  Seek  then,  O  man,  the  praise  of 
God,  as  all  the  heroes  of  mankind  have  done,  as  the 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    123 

prophets  and  apostles  and  martyrs,  and  as  Christ  him- 
self has  done.  Never  defer  your  sense  of  right  to  any 
love  of  praise.  If  you  get  approbation,  take  it  as 
an  accident  of  your  excellence,  and  not  as  a  sign. 
Count  the  praise  you  are  clothed  with  as  a  sackcloth 
garment  of  penance  which  you  must  wear  for  not  being 
above  and  before  men ;  and  if  you  miss  their  approba- 
tion, be  not  sore,  but  the  more  loving.  The  integrity 
of  your  own  soul  is  better  than  the  best  name  which  the 
age,  present  or  to  come,  can  ever  give  you.  If  you 
love  God,  that  love  will  cast  out  all  fear  of  human, 
infamy,  transcend  all  human  praise,  and  fill  you  with 
saintly  heroism.  The  fame  of  the  Christian  is  not 
fame  with  men,  it  is  good  report  with  God ;  and  that 

"  Fame  is  no  plant  that  grows  on  mortal  soil, 
Nor  in  the  glistering  foil 
Set  off  to  the  world,  nor  in  broad  rumor  lies ; 
But  lives  and  spreads  aloft  by  those  pure  eyes 
And  perfect  witness  of  all- judging  Jove. 
As  He  pronounces  lastly  on  each  deed. 
Of  so  much  fame  in  heaven  expect  thy  meed." 

DEFERENCE  TO  PUBLIC  OPINION 

It  is  not  by  self-respect  and  self-reliance  that  men 
get  the  reputation  of  being  wise  and  prudent,  but  by 
subordination,  by  a  cringing  deference  to  public  opin- 
ion ;  not  by  giving  weight  to  superior  personal  qual- 
ities of  other  men,  but  to  superior  wealth,  station,  or 
great  renown.  When  some  years  ago  a  young  min- 
ister said  some  words  that  rang  in  the  churches,  the 
criticism  made  on  him  was,  that  he  was  not  thirty 
years  old.  It  is  common  for  young  men  to  postpone 
becoming  true  to  their  convictions  until  rich  and  well 
known.  That  is  to  put  it  off  forever.  Suppose  Paul 
had  waited  until  he  was  rich,  or  until  he  was  a  great 


124.   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

and  famous  rabbi,  before  he  told  men  that  Christian- 
ity alone  was  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  life, —  how  long 
had  he  waited,  and  what  had  he  done?  Suppose 
Jesus,  when  about  thirty,  had  said,  "  It  will  never  do 
for  a  young  man  like  me  to  respect  my  soul  now ;  I 
must  wait  till  I  am  old.  Did  not  Moses  wait  till  he 
was  fourscore  before  he  said  a  word  to  his  countrymen 
about  leaving  Egypt?  " — what  would  have  become  of 
him?  Why,  the  Spirit  of  God  that  irradiated  his  vast 
soul  would  have  gone  off  and  perched  itself  on  the 
mouth  of  some  babe  or  suckling,  who  would  have  wel- 
comed the  great  revelation,  and  spread  it  abroad  like 
the  genial  sun.  Do  you  think  that  Simon  Peter  and 
John  and  James  and  Joseph  would  have  been  more 
likely  to  accept  Christianity,  if  they  had  been  rich 
and  famous  and  old  men?  As  well  might  the  young 
camel  have  waited  till  he  was  old  and  fat  and  stiff, 
In  hopes  to  go  the  easier  through  the  needle's  eye. 

PERSONAL  INTEGRITY 

At  first  sight,  the  most  attractive  and  popular  qual- 
ity in  woman  is  always  beauty,  the  completeness  of 
the  whole  frame,  and  the  perfection  of  its  several 
parts, —  for  it  is  this  which  like  morning  light  earliest 
strikes  the  eye,  the  most  salient  sense,  which  travels 
quickest  and  farthest  too.  At  a  distance  the  eye  com- 
prehends and  appreciates  this  genius  of  the  flesh, — 
the  most  spiritual  organ  of  the  body  doing  homage 
to  the  least  material  part  of  matter.  But  by  and  by, 
some  faculty  nobler  than  sight  looks  for  what  cor- 
responds to  itself,  and  finding  it  not,  turns  off  sadly 
from  the  pretty  face  and  dainty  shape ;  or  discerning 
therein  lofty  powers  of  mind  and  conscience  and  heart 
and   soul,   things   too   fair   for  the   corporeal   eye  to 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  125 

touch,  is  rejoiced  thereat,  and  then  values  physical 
handsomeness  as  the  alabaster-box  which  holds  the 
precious  spikenard  and  frankincense,  with  whose  odor 
the  whole  house  is  filled. 

So  the  most  popular  and  attractive  quality  in  the 
public  man, —  lecturer,  politician,  lawyer,  reformer, 
minister, —  at  first  is  doubtless  eloquence,  the  power 
of  handsome  speech,  for  that  is  to  larger  and  nobler 
qualities  what  ph3'sical  beauty  is  to  loveliness  of  the 
whole  spirit.  It  is  quickly  discerned,  felt  as  we  feel 
lightning,  it  flashes  in  the  hand,  runs  through  our 
bones,  and  along  the  nerves,  this  music  of  argument. 
But  the  flash,  the  dazzle,  the  electric  thrill,  pass  by, 
we  recover  ourselves,  and  look  for  something  more  than 
words  fitly  spoken.  So,  in  the  long  run,  the  quality 
men  value  most  in  all  public  persons  is  integrity. 
Webster,  Everett,  and  Choate,  we  value  for  their  elo- 
quence, their  masterly  power  of  speech ;  but  the  three 
Adamses,  Washington,  and  Franklin,  the  nation  values 
for  their  integrity.  This  is  to  eloquence  what  a  wise, 
good,  religious  mother  is  to  the  painted  girl  at  the 
opera,  decked  out,  poor  thing,  to  please  the  audience 
for  a  single  hour,  and  win  their  cheap  applause.  In- 
tegrity is  a  marble  statue  which  survives  the  sacking 
of  cities  and  the  downfall  of  an  empire,  and  comes  to 
us  from  the  age  of  Augustus  or  the  time  of  Pericles, 
all  the  more  beautiful  for  its  travel  through  space  and 
time;  while  eloquence  is  like  forms  of  chalk  painted 
on  a  rich  man's  floor  for  one  feast-night,  the  next 
morning  to  be  scrubbed  off*  and  cast  into  the  street. 

Integrity  is  to  a  man  what  impenetrability  is  to 
matter.  It  is  the  cohesive  force  which  binds  the  per- 
sonal particles  of  my  nature  into  a  person.  It  is  that 
quality  of  stableness  which  enables  me  to  occupy  my 


126   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

place,  which  makes  me  my  own  master,  and  keeps  me 
from  getting  lost  in  the  person  of  other  men,  or  in 
the  tumultuous  crowd  of  my  own  passional  or  calculat- 
ing desires.  It  is  the  centripetal  force  which  holds  me 
together,  and  keeps  me  from  flattening  out  and  thin- 
ning off  until  I  am  all  gone  into  something  else.  It 
is  domination  over  myself,  not  servility  to  another. 
It  is  self-rule  by  my  own  highest  qualities.  By  the 
primal  instinct  of  the  body  we  fend  off  everything 
that  would  destroy  the  individuality  of  our  corporeal 
frame,  and  thereby  keep  our  flesh  safe,  whole,  and 
sound.  Everybody  repels  another  who  would  wrench 
from  him  a  farthing.  By  a  similar  instinct  of  spirit 
we  keep  off^  all  that  would  impair  the  inner  man  and 
disturb  its  wholeness,  and  put  another  man's  mind  and 
conscience  and  heart  and  soul  in  place  of  our  own,  or 
which  would  make  any  evil  passion  to  rule  in  place  of 
what  is  highest  and  dearest  in  us.  Thereby  we  keep 
our  spirit  safe  and  whole  and  sound.  Integrity  is 
made  up  of  these  two  forces:  it  is  justice  and  firmness. 
It  is  the  mingling  of  moral  emotions  and  ideas  with  a 
strong  will,  which  controls  and  commands  them. 

Now  the  first  duty  which  God  demands  of  men  is 
that  they  be  faithful,  each  man  to  his  own  nature,  and 
each  woman  to  hers,  to  respect  it,  to  discipline  it  to 
its  proper  manner,  and  to  use  it  in  well-proportioned 
life.  If  I  fail  in  that,  I  fail  of  every  thing  besides ; 
I  lose  my  individual  selfhood.  Gain  what  else  I  may, 
the  gain  is  of  small  consequence;  I  have  lost  my  own 
soul,  and  to  get  any  thing  without  this  and  hope  to 
keep  it,  is  like  keeping  money  in  a  purse  which  has  no 
bottom.  Personal  fidelity  is  the  first  of  all  duties.  I 
am  responsible  for  what  gifts  God  has  given  me,  not 
at  all  for  your  gifts.     You  may  be  great,  and  I  very 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    127 

little ;  still  I  must  use  my  little  faithfully,  nor  ever 
let  it  be  swallowed  up  in  the  stream  of  a  great  power- 
ful man,  nor  in  the  grand  ocean  of  mankind.  Though 
I  may  be  the  feeblest  and  smallest  of  mortal  men,  my 
individuality  is  just  as  precious  to  me  as  nationality 
is  to  the  largest  nation,  or  humanity  to  mankind.  This 
impenetrability  and  toughness  of  character  is  indis- 
pensable to  all  nobleness,  to  all  sturdy  manhood.  It 
is  the  most  masculine  of  virtues,  the  most  feminine  at 
the  same  time.  It  is  fortitude  of  the  flesh,  chastity  of 
the  soul.  But  while  I  keep  the  mastery  of  myself  in 
my  own  hands,  I  must  use  the  help  of  the  great  men 
and  the  little  men  by  my  side,  and  of  humanity.  I 
must  touch  everybody,  not  mingle  and  lose  myself  in 
any  one.  I  must  be  helped  and  helpful,  and  not  mas- 
tered and  overcome.  So  I  can  be  taught  by  all  teach- 
ers, advised  by  all  history,  past  and  present,  and  yet 
keep  my  flag  on  its  own  staff",  and  never  strike  my 
colors  to  any  man,  however  venerable,  or  any  multi- 
tude, however  great.  Self-reliant  independence,  dis- 
creet faithfulness  to  the  gifts  God  has  given  me,  is  the 
primal  duty,  is  the  Adam  and  Eve  in  the  Paradise  of 
duties ;  and  if  this  fails,  others  are  not  at  all. 

Now  there  are  two  forces  which  disturb  and  often 
prevent  this  absolute  personal  integrity.  The  first  is 
subjective,  from  within;  the  other  is  objective,  from 
without.  First,  the  instinctive  passions,  by  their  rapid, 
spontaneous,  and  energetic  activity,  and  the  ambitious 
desires,  love  of  money,  respect,  and  official  power,  get 
easily  the  mastery  over  a  man,  and  his  noble  faculties 
are  nipped  in  the  bud.  He  has  no  blossom  of  man- 
hood, and  of  course  bears  no  manly  fruit.  The  higher 
faculties  of  his  intellect  are  stifled,  the  conscience  dries 
up  in  the  man,  the  aff*ections  fade  out  and  perish,  and 


128   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

in  place  of  that  womanly  religion  which  his  soul  longed 
for  as  its  fitting  mate,  a  foreign  superstition,  a  horrible 
darkness,  sits  in  his  gate,  making  night  hideous.  In 
this  case,  the  man  fails  of  his  personal  integrity  by 
allowing  his  meaner  appetites  to  rule  him.  I  am  a  free, 
self-mastered  man  only  when  all  my  faculties  have  each 
their  proper  place;  I  am  a  slave  if  any  one  of  them 
domineers,  and  treads  me  down.  I  may  be  the  slave  of 
passion  or  of  calculation,  and  in  either  case  my  per- 
sonal integrity  is  gone  more  completely  than  if  a  mas- 
ter from  without  had  welded  his  collar  about  my  neck 
and  his  chain  on  my  feet.  I  am  more  disgracefully 
conquered,  for  a  man  may  be  overcome  from  without 
by  superior  force,  and  while  he  suffers  loss  incurs  no 
reproach,  and  his  dignity  is  not  harmed.  But  if  I  am 
overmastered  by  my  own  flesh,  how  base  is  my  defeat! 
The  other  disturbing  force  is  objective,  from  with- 
out. Here  other  men  fool  me  away  from  myself,  and 
divulse  me  from  my  soul.  Public  opinion  takes  my 
free  mind  out  of  me,  and  I  dare  not  think  and  speak 
till  some  one  has  told  me  what  to  say.  Sometimes  pub- 
lic law  runs  off  with  all  individual  morality.  The  man 
never  asks  what  is  right  and  manly,  and  squares  with 
his  conscience,  but,  "  How  far  can  I  go  and  not  be 
caught  up  by  the  sheriff  .f*  "  How  mean  it  is  to  silence 
the  voice  of  God  within  you,  and  instead  thereof  have 
only  the  harsh  formula  of  the  crier  of  the  court. 
Sometimes  the  popular  theology  turns  off  the  man's 
soul  from  him,  and  sits  there  mumbling  over  those 
words  which  once  flamed  out  of  the  religious  conscious- 
ness of  saints  and  martyrs,  prophets  and  apostles ;  but 
to  him  they  are  nothing  but  cold,  hard  cinders  from 
another's  hearth,  once  wann  to  some  one,  now  good  for 
nothing.     How  contemptible  seems  the  man  who  com- 


I 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    129 

mits  high  treason  against  himself,  levies  war  on  his 
own  noblest  faculties,  and  betrays  himself,  and  goes 
over  to  his  own  enemies.  Of  what  avail  then  is  money 
got  by  indirect  means?  Justice  makes  us  pay  for  it 
all ;  it  takes  it  out  of  our  hide,  if  not  out  of  our  purse. 
How  base  is  a  man's  respectability,  the  praise  of  men 
which  falls  on  him,  when  he  has  lost  that  foundation 
which  alone  can  hold  up  any  praise,  his  own  self-re- 
spect, and  faithfulness  to  himself!  How  ridiculous  is 
official  power  when  the  personal  power  of  self-trust 
has  gone !  How  mean  looks  that  man  who  has  turned 
his  soul  out  of  doors  to  bring  in  the  whole  world!  I 
see  him  in  his  wine-cups,  the  victim  of  appetites  and 
passions  that  war  against  the  soul.  I  see  him  amid  his 
riches,  the  slave  of  covetousness.  I  look  at  him  when 
the  applause  of  a  convention  of  similar  men  repays  his 
falseness  to  himself,  the  mere  tool  of  the  hand  that  feeds 
him.  Is  it  worth  while  to  take  the  opinion  of  the  pave- 
ment instead  of  your  own  opinion,  your  own  manly  or 
womanly  sense?  Shame  on  us  that  we  are  such  cow- 
ards and  betray  ourselves ! 

But  how  grand,  and  not  less  than  magnificent,  ap- 
pears 

"  The  man  who  still  suspects  and  still  reveres 
Himself,  in  nobleness  and  lowliness 
Of  soul,  whom  no  temptations  from  within 
Force  to  deformity  of  life;  whom  no 
Seductions  from  without  corrupt  and  turn 
Astray." 

Look  at  such  a  man  in  his  pleasures, —  temperate, 
full  of  open,  daily  blessedness,  with  no  silent  meanness 
of  concealed  joy.  See  him  in  his  business, —  erect  as  a 
palm-tree,  no  lies  on  his  tongue,  no  fraud  of  tricky 
mind,  no  bad  money  running  into  his  purse,  but  the 
XI— 9 


130      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

New  Testament's  Golden  Rule  Ijing  on  his  counter,  his 
desk,  his  bench,  as  a  meet  one  bj  which  to  buy  and 
sell !  See  him  in  the  public  meeting, —  faithful  to 
himself,  though  he  stands  all  alone ;  public  opinion, 
public  law,  public  theology,  may  be  against  him,  but  a 
man  on  the  side  of  his  own  soul  has  the  Infinite  God 
for  his  ally.  Think  not  of  his  ever  lacking  friends. 
This  is  the  foundation  of  all  the  rest.  It  is  the  first 
quality  you  ask  of  every  man  and  of  every  woman. 
This  you  can  build  into  any  thing  else  that  you  will; 
but  as  the  granite  must  be  solid  in  the  block  before 
it  is  solid  in  the  building,  so  you  must  have  this  in- 
tegral personal  impenetrability  in  the  individual  man 
or  woman,  before  they  are  worth  much  in  any  relation 
of  life  where  they  are  placed. 

Alas !  There  is  not  much  pains  taken  just  now  to 
promote  this  personal  integrity.  How  men  laugh  at  it 
continually  and  hiss  it  down.  The  husband  asks  this 
young  woman,  whom  he  weds,  to  surrender  her  personal 
integrity,  and  she  ceases  to  be  an  individual  woman, 
and  becomes  only  his  wife.  The  magistrate  asks  the 
people  to  give  up  their  personal  integrity ;  they  have 
only  to  do  just  as  they  are  bid  and  it  will  all  come  out 
right,  he  tells  them,  whether  their  souls  be  trod  under 
the  government  hoofs  or  not ;  and  so  the  man  who 
accepts  that  doctrine  turns  into  a  fraction  of  the  state, 
and  is  not  a  person  of  the  state.  The  little  silken 
virtues,  perfumed  with  rosemary,  current  in  what  is 
called  the  world  of  fashion,  fit  its  inhabitants  to  be 
beaux  and  belles,  not  men  and  women,  with  great  manly 
and  womanly  character,  thoughts,  feelings,  prayers, 
aspirations,  life.  Some  one  said  to  me  the  other  day: 
"  To  be  respectable  in  Boston  and  welcomed  into  the 
best  society,  a  man  must  sacrifice  his  soul ;  individuality 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    131 

must  go  down  before  sociality."  Jesus  of  Nazai-eth 
had  a  personal  integi'ity  as  hard  as  the  British  cannon- 
balls  which  beat  down  Sebastopol ;  but  nine  ministers  in 
every  ten,  in  his  name,  tell  men  they  must  cast  away  all 
integral  consciousness,  and  be  only  a  branch  of  Christ. 
Not  so !  I  also  am  a  tree,  not  a  branch  of  any  man. 
My  individuality,  though  it  is  but  the  smallest  shrub 
of  humanity,  roots  into  that  great  field  of  the  world 
where  Jesus  and  Moses  and  Plato  and  Aristotle  and 
Leibnitz  and  Newton  also  stood  and  rooted  and  grew. 
God  loves  me  as  well  as  he  loved  those  great  and 
gorgeous  souls,  and  if  he  gave  them  ten  talents,  and 
me  only  two  mites,  which  joined  together  make  but  the 
fourth  part  of  a  penny,  he  demands  the  same  faithful 
use  of  me  as  of  him  who  has  the  ten  talents.  This 
personal  integrity  is  the  oldest  of  virtues.  To  the 
spirit  it  is  what  bravery  is  to  the  body.  It  is  the 
father  of  all  the  rest. 

What  honors  do  we  pay  to  saints  and  martyrs  who 
kept  their  spirit  clean  amid  the  fire,  and  laid  down  their 
body's  life  rather  than  stain  the  integrity  of  their  spirit ! 
At  the  head  of  American  statesmen  stand  Washington 
and  Franklin.  Neither  of  them  had  a  brilliant  quality, 
but  each  had  such  faithfulness  to  his  idea  of  official 
duty  that  their  influence  is  ploughed  into  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  land  they  lived  in. 

Integrity  is  a  virtue  which  costs  much.  In  the  period 
of  passion,  it  takes  self-denial  to  keep  down  the  appe- 
tites of  the  flesh;  in  the  time  of  ambition,  with  us  far 
more  dangerous,  it  requires  very  much  earnestness  of 
character  to  keep  covetousness  within  its  proper 
bounds,  not  to  be  swerved  by  love  of  the  praise  of 
men,  or  official  power  over  them.  But  what  a  magnifi- 
cent recompense  does  it  bring  to  any  and  every  man ! 


132   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

Any  pleasure  which  costs  conscience  a  single  pang  is 
really  a  pain,  and  not  a  pleasure.  All  gain  which  robs 
you  of  your  integrity  is  a  gain  which  profits  not;  it 
is  a  loss.  Honor  is  infamy  if  won  by  the  sale  of  your 
own  soul.  But  what  womanly  and  manly  delights  does 
this  costly  virtue  bring  into  our  consciousness,  here 
and  hereafter! 

PERSONAL   IDEALIZATION 

I  never  trust  any  man's  statement  against  his  enemy. 
The  idealization  of  hate  destroys  the  personal  likeness. 
So  it  is  with  the  benevolent  emotions ;  they  idealize  and 
beautify.  "  There  never  was  such  a  baby  as  our 
baby,"  says  Edward  to  Susan  and  Susan  to  Edward. 
How  do  Romeo  and  Juliet  mutually  purr  over  each 
other!  If  a  man  has  done  us  any  considerable  service, 
how  do  we  idealize  him !  The  good  old  doctor, —  how 
he  is  idealized  by  his  patients,  or  the  noble-hearted 
minister  by  his  hearers !  "  Good  men  are  scarce,"  say 
they ;  "  there  will  never  be  such  another."  So  with 
men  who  serve  nations,  especially  if  they  fill  a  great 
office.  The  Americans  idealize  Washington ;  even 
painters  and  sculptors  must  transcend  the  fact.  If 
some  artist  should  paint  Washington  as  he  was  at  the 
age  of  sixty,  and  exhibit  the  picture,  I  suppose  the 
Honorable  Members  of  Congress  would  stone  it  with 
stones.  A  few  years  ago  a  minister,  in  a  sermon  on 
Washington,  ascribed  to  him  many  moral  excellences, 
and  integrity  greatest  of  all,  in  the  heroic  degree ;  and 
wishing  to  paint  the  man  just  as  he  understood  him, 
he  mentioned  the  fact  that  he  once  told  a  great  lie, 
and  gained  the  battle  of  Yorktown ;  that  he  sometimes 
swore  the  most  terrible  oaths,  and  got  into  great  wrath ; 
that  he  did  not  believe  the  popular  theology  of  his 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    133 

time,  but  probably  thought  as  Franklin  and  Jefferson 
did.  How  angry  were  editors  and  ministers.  None 
disputed  the  fact,  but  they  were  wrathful  because  the 
truth  was  told.  The  Athenians  condemned  Anaxagoras 
to  death  because  he  taught  that  the  sun  was  fire.  Ac- 
cordingly, we  do  not  trust  the  Buddhist's  account  of 
Buddha.  Who  ever  believes  the  eulogies  delivered  in 
Congress  or  in  Faneuil  Hall,  or  in  meeting-houses.'* 
Funeral  sermons  are  often  as  false  as  dicers'  oaths. 

But  this  idealization  passes  away.  By  and  by  the 
mother  who  has  borne  ten  babies  has  seen  a  thousand 
as  good  as  her  own,  and  knows  her  children  just  as  they 
are.  Romeo  finds  gray  hairs  in  Juliet's  pretty  curls. 
The  patient  finds  other  doctors  of  skill,  and  that  his  is 
sometimes  mistaken.  The  parish  learns  that  the  minis- 
ter has  neither  all  the  human  virtues  nor  all  the  great 
talent ;  that  some  little  man  of  a  despised  sect  has  some 
wild-flower  of  humanity  which  their  favorite  has  not 
got.  The  nation  finds  out  that  its  great  benefactors 
had  both  good  and  ill,  and  did  not  exhaust  the  pos- 
sibility of  mankind.  Other  Athenians  built  a  sacred 
monument  to  him  whom  their  fathers  condemned  for 
telling  the  truth  about  the  sun.  How  mankind  loves 
the  actual  fact,  truth  as  it  is,  in  nature  or  man ! 

I  have  at  home  three  great  books,  full  of  panegyrics 
which  some  rhetoricians  wrote  about  the  Roman  em- 
perors. I  would  give  them  all  for  one  moral  daguer- 
reotype of  Julius  Caesar  or  Alexander  Severus.  No 
wise  man  objects  to  idealization,  but  he  does  not  like  to 
have  it  in  the  same  platter  with  the  historic  fact.  I 
think  the  time  has  come  when  a  small  part  of  Christen- 
dom would  like  to  look  at  a  daguerreotype  of  Jesus, 
and  be  content  with  the  historical  person,  just  as  he 
was,  and  give  up  that  long  series  of  fancy  sketches 


134   THE  WORLD  OP  MATTER  AND  MAN 

which  make  up  the  ecclesiastical  Christ ;  for  to  my  think- 
ing, that  noble-browed  cai*penter,  with  his  great  trust, 
and  pious  feeling,  and  grand  life,  is  worth  more  than 
all  the  ecclesiastical  dreams  about  him  down  to  this  day. 

Agreeable  persons  you  always  love  best  when  pres- 
ent. Disagreeable  persons  whom  you  love,  you  always 
love  best  in  absence ;  because  imagination,  stimulated 
by  affection,  supplies  virtues  whose  ugly  omission  is 
pressed  upon  you  when  such  persons  are  by. 

THE  HAPPY  MAN 

The  happiest  man  I  have  ever  known  is  one  far 
enough  from  being  rich  in  money,  and  who  will  never 
be  much  nearer  to  it.  His  calling  fits  him,  and  he  likes 
it,  rejoices  in  its  process  as  much  as  in  its  result.  He 
has  an  active  mind,  well  filled.  He  reads  and  he  thinks. 
He  tends  his  garden  before  sunrise  every  morning,  then 
rides  sundry  miles  by  the  rail,  does  his  ten  hours'  work 
in  the  town,  whence  he  returns  happy  and  cheerful. 
With  his  own  smile  he  catches  the  earliest  smile  of  the 
morning,  plucks  the  first  rose  of  his  garden,  and  goes 
to  his  work  with  the  little  flower  in  his  hand,  and  a 
great  one  blossoming  out  of  his  heart.  He  runs  over 
with  charity,  as  a  cloud  with  rain ;  and  it  is  with  him  as 
with  the  cloud, —  what  coming  from  the  cloud  is  rain 
to  the  meadows,  is  a  rainbow  of  glories  to  the  cloud 
that  pours  it  out.  The  happiness  of  the  affections 
fills  up  the  good  man,  and  he  runs  over  with  friendship 
and  love, —  connubial,  parental,  filial,  friendly  too,  and 
philanthropic  besides.  His  life  is  a  perpetual  "  trap 
to  catch  a  sunbeam,"  and  it  always  springs  and  takes 
it  in.  I  know  no  man  who  gets  more  out  of  life,  and 
the  secret  of  it  is  that  he  does  his  duty  to  himself,  to 


I 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    135 

his  brother,  and  to  his  God.  I  know  rich  men,  and 
learned  men,  men  of  great  social  position ;  and  if  there 
is  genius  in  America,  I  know  that, —  but  a  happier 
man  I  have  never  known. 

The  worst  idol  that  a  man  ever  bows  down  to  is  a 
dead  saint,  not  a  live  sinner;  for  the  live  sinner  shows 
us  his  sin ;  but  we  put  a  glory  about  the  dead  saint, 
and  cease  to  see  his  follies,  and  become  enslaved  thereto. 

MODESTY   A   CHARACTERISTIC    OF   THE   GREATEST 

MEN 

Almost  every  great  man  has  been  modest;  certainly 
all  that  were  great  in  the  noblest  forms  of  human  ex- 
cellence. The  great  philosophers  like  Newton  and 
Kant  have  been  more  modest  than  the  sophomores  of  a 
college.  The  Shakespeares,  Miltons,  and  Bumses,  I 
doubt  not,  were  not  half  so  well  satisfied  with  their 
work  as  is  the  penny-a-liner  of  the  daily  press  with  his, 
or  the  poet  who  opens  a  city  lyceum,  who  mistakes  the 
momentary  applause  of  young  men  for  lasting  fame. 
Chevalier  Bayard  probably  never  boasted  so  much  of 
his  exploits  as  some  arrant  coward  who  hacked  his 
sword  behind  a  hedge,  that  he  might  exhibit  it  to  the 
admiration  of  men  in  bar-rooms.  Saint  Paul  reckons 
himself  as  the  least  of  the  apostles,  though  his  works 
have  left  a  monument  in  Ephesus,  and  Corinth,  and 
Rome,  and  many  other  great  cities,  and  your  and  my 
piety  is  warmed  at  this  day  by  the  words  uttered  from 
his  great  burning  soul.  Did  not  Christ  refuse  to  be 
called  good  even?  This  modesty  is  one  of  the  signifi- 
cant and  descriptive  marks  of  men  of  worth.  It  is  of 
their  genus  and  species  both.  Not  the  thanksgiving, 
"  Father,  I  thank  thee  that  I  am  not  as  other  men 


136   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

are ! "  but  the  penitent  cry,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me 
a  sinner!"  were  the  justifying  words  which  sent  the 
pubhcan  to  his  home  a  wiser  and  a  better  and  a  more 
accepted  man. 

Not  they  who  court  the  public  applause  get  their 
names  joined  in  stable  wedlock  with  fame;  but  they 
who  scorn  that  applause,  and  ask  only  for  their  own 
soul's  approbation,  and  the  praise  of  God.  Their 
names  it  is  that  live  forever. 

POWER  OF  FEELING  ESSENTIAL  TO  GREATNESS  OF 
CHARACTER 

For  a  complete  and  noble  character  you  want  a  great 
power  of  feeling,  and  especially  do  you  want  it  for  all 
the  high  forms  thereof.  You  do  not  need  much  for 
man  in  his  merely  mechanical  and  artificial  function,  to 
make  a  mere  soldier,  a  mere  naturalist,  tailor,  priest, 
jobber,  for  these  names  designate  only  special  callings 
of  men,  wherein  feeling  is  not  much  needed.  Despotic 
judges  never  want  any  feeling  in  the  jurors.  The 
tyrant,  whether  a  democrat  or  an  aristocrat,  never 
wants  feeling  in  his  magistrates ;  they  are  to  execute 
the  law ;  the  worse  it  is,  the  more  they  are  to  execute 
it;  for  a  righteous  law  does  itself,  but  a  wicked  law 
needs  a  great  deal  of  executing.  There  will  be  feeling 
in  such  persons,  as  there  are  fringed  gentians  beside 
the  mill-pond,  which  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  busi- 
ness of  the  mill. 

A  man  without  large  power  of  feeling  is  not  good 
for  much  as  a  man.  He  may  be  a  good  mathematician, 
a  very  respectable  lawyer,  or  doctor  of  divinity,  but  he 
is  not  capable  of  the  high  and  beautiful  and  holy 
things    of    manhood.     He    cannot    even    comprehend 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    137 

them ;  how  much  less  do  and  become.     It  is  power  of 
feehng,  as  well  as  thought,  which  furnishes  the  sub- 
stance wherewith  the  orator  delights  and  controls  and 
elevates  the  mass  of  men.     Thought  alone  is  never  elo- 
quent;  it  is  not  enough,  even  for  the  orator's  purpose; 
he  must  stand  on  the  primeval  rock  of  human  con- 
sciousness, must  know  bj  experience  the  profoundest 
feelings   of  men,  their  love,   their  hate,   their   anger, 
their  hope,  their  fear,  and,  above  all  things,  their  love 
of  God,   and  unspeakable  trust  therein.     Feeling,  he 
must  make  others  feel.     Mere  thought  convinces ;  feel- 
ing always  persuades.     If  imagination  furnish  the  poet 
with  wings,  feeling  is  the  great,  stout   muscle  which 
plies  them,  and  lifts  him  from  the  ground.     Thought 
sees  beauty,  emotion  feels  it.     Every  great  poet  has 
been  distinguished  as  much  for  power  of  emotion  as 
power    of    thought.     Pope    had    more    wisdom    than 
Burns,  Pollok  as  much  as  Wordsworth ;  but  which  are 
the  poets  for  the  man's  heart  and  his  pillow  ?     In  great 
poets    like    Homer,    Dante,    Milton,    Shakespeare, — 
noblest  of  them  all, —  there  is  a  great  masterly  power 
of  feeling  joined  to  a  great  masterly  power  to  think. 
They  see  and  feel  too,  and  have  the  faculty  divine  of 
telling   what   they    feel.     Poetry    and    Eloquence    are 
twin  sisters ;  Feeling  is  their  mother,  Thought  is  the 
father.     One  is  directed  more  to  beauty ;  sits  still  in  the 
house,  her  garlands  and  singing  robes  about  her  all 
the  day.     The  other  is  devoted  more  to  use,  cumbered 
with  much  sen'ing,  wears  a  workday  suit.     But  they 
have  the  same   e^'e,  the   same   face,   the  same   family 
likeness.     Every  great  artist,  painter  or  sculptor,  must 
likewise  have  great  power  to  feel.      Half  the  odds  be- 
tween Raphael  and  a  Chinese  painter  is  in  the  power 
of  feeling.     But  few  men  are  poets,  orators,  sculptors. 


138   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

or  painters.  I  only  mention  these  to  show  how  for 
the  high  modes  of  intellectual  activity  feeling  is  neces- 
sary. 

It  is  equally  necessary  for  the  common  life  of  men. 
Thought  and  feeling  both  must  go  to  housekeeping,  or 
it  is  a  sad  family.  The  spiritual  part  of  human  beauty, 
man's  or  woman's,  is  one-fifth  an  expression  of  thought, 
four-fifths  of  feeling.  The  philosopher's  face  is  not 
handsome.  Socrates,  John  Locke,  John  Calvin,  and 
Immanuel  Kant,  are  good  enough  types  of  mere 
thought,  hard  thought,  without  emotion.  It  is  the 
power  of  feeling  which  makes  the  wise  father  at- 
tractive, the  strongminded  mother  dear.  This  joins 
relatives  nearer  than  kindred  blood;  it  makes  friend- 
ship actual ;  it  is  the  great  element  in  philanthropy ; 
it  is  the  fountain  whence  flows  forth  all  that  which  we 
call  piety.  Philanthropy  is  feeling  for  men,  friend- 
ship is  feeling  with  men,  and  piety  is  feeling  with  God. 
All  great  religious  leaders  have  been  men  of  great 
power  of  emotion, —  Mahomet,  Luther,  Loyola,  Wes- 
ley, Whitefield ;  and  what  we  admire  most  in  Jesus  is 
not  his  masterly  power  of  thought,  but  his  genius  for 
love,  power  of  feeling  in  its  highest  modes.  His  in- 
tellectual character  is  certainly  a  great  weight,  his 
foot-prints  are  very  deep ;  but  most  men  do  not  think 
of  Jesus  as  a  great-minded,  a  great-thoughted  man. 
"  Neither  do  I  condemn  thee ;  go,  and  sin  no  more ;  " 
"  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they 
do ;  " —  thought  alone  had  not  reached  up  so  high 
as  that  in  that  age  and  in  this  young  man,  but  a  great 
mountain  of  spontaneous  human  feeling  pressed  on  him, 
and  drove  that  fount  up  to  such  heights  of  sparkling 
piety. 

But  all  men  of  great  feeling  are  also  capable  of 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    139 

great  wrath.  Where  the  sun  is  hottest,  there  the  light- 
ning is  reddest,  and  the  loudest  thunder  speaks. 
There  was  never  such  blessing  as  Jesus  pours  out  in 
the  Beatitudes.  Was  there  ever  such  cursing  likewise 
as  that, — "  Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hyp- 
ocrites!".'' I  know  very  well  how  men  love  to  picture 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  men  who  never  had  a  great  mighty 
feeling,  who  never  felt  a  mighty  love,  who  were  never 
swayed  by  a  mighty  wrath.  They  say  he  was  the 
lion  of  the  tribe  of  Judah ;  but  they  think  he  was  a  lion 
with  no  teeth  nor  claws,  who  could  only  roar  like  some 
mouse  in  the  wall.  It  is  not  so.  They  understand 
not  his  depth,  nor  even  their  own.  It  was  not  after 
that  sort  that  the  writers  of  the  first  three  Gospels 
described  him.  They  represent  him  not  only  as  shed- 
ding his  sunlight,  but  as  thundering  and  lightning 
also.  Do  not  tell  me  that  those  fiery  words  were 
spoken  with  cold  lips !  Depend  upon  it,  his  eye  looked 
round  and  flamed  like  fire  in  the  New  Hampshire  woods, 
and  men  turned  off  from  that  countenance.  In  due 
time  no  doubt  all  became  calm  again.  I  think  the 
power  of  wrath  was  lodged  in  him  only  as  in  every 
civilized  military  country  there  are  kept  great  breach- 
ing cannon ;  they  are  not  brought  out  on  holidays,  the 
boys  have  never  seen  them ;  and  the  old  men  hardly 
remember  them ;  but  once  in  a  while  in  the  nation's 
life  these  great  cannon  are  brought  out,  and 
speak  with  fearful  roar.  God  has  lodged  the  faculty 
of  wrath  in  man,  not  to  be  our  master,  but  to  be  our 
servant.     You  see  it  thus  in  Jesus. 

I  do  not  think  that  we  take  pains  enough  with  the 
culture  of  this  emotive  part  of  our  nature,  especially 
with  the  higher  feelings, —  love  in  either  of  its  forms, 
directed  in  friendship  or  philanthropy  towards  men,  or 


140   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

in  pure  piety  towards  God.  Here  are  two  reasons  for 
this  neglect  of  our  emotional  culture.  One  is  the  mer- 
cantile character  of  the  people,  where  we  calculate 
every  thing,  and  somewhat  overrate  the  understanding 
in  comparison  with  the  other  powers ;  for  our  arithmetic 
is  not  yet  quite  capable  of  calculating  the  exact  value 
of  philanthropy,  of  friendship,  and  of  piety,  and  after 
all  our  ciphering  we  have  not  got  a  calculus  to  appre- 
ciate these  nice  and  powerful  emotions.  The  other 
reason  is  that  we  have  false  notions  about  religion,  for 
the  form  of  religion  which  prevails  most  in  North 
America  is  Calvinism,  and  that  is  the  cold,  hard,  dry 
religion  of  a  man  with  vast  intellect  and  great  will, 
but  very  little  power  of  emotion,  and  of  the  higher 
feelings  of  love  to  man  and  love  to  God,  scarce  any 
that  I  could  discover  with  any  solar  microscope  which 
I  have  brought  to  bear  upon  his  character  or  writings. 
In  consequence  of  this,  which  has  vitiated  our  religious 
culture  in  the  very  fountain  of  it,  men  think  that  feel- 
ing is  a  little  unmanly,  and  when  a  young  man  or  an 
old  man  makes  his  ideal  of  what  he  ought  to  be,  he 
does  not  put  in  much  emotion,  but  great  wit  and  great 
understanding.  Half  the  women  in  New  England 
think  it  is  wicked  to  let  their  affections  take  hold  of 
friend,  relative,  husband,  or  child,  with  such  a  strong 
grasp  as  the  feelings  would  naturally  lay  there;  they 
think  it  is  so  much  love  taken  from  God, —  as  if 
natural  love  for  God's  creatures  was  not  also  natural 
love  for  God;  as  if  this  was  not  the  ladder  whereby 
we  climb  up  to  Love  infinite  and  absolute.  Besides, 
the  picture  that  has  been  presented  of  God  Himself, 
is  not  such  that  anybody  could  love  it  much.  We  fear 
God  very  much,  but  love  Him  very  little.  I  mean  it  is 
the  nature  of  Calvinism  to  produce  that  effect. 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    141 

To  be  complete  men  we  want  much  more  power  of 
emotion,  much  more  love,  human  and  divine,  than  is  al- 
lowed in  our  schemes  of  education.  But  we  want  it 
not  as  our  master,  only  our  helper.  Reflective  man 
must  be  the  lord  of  the  instinctive  emotions.  Feeling 
masters  the  savage  child;  but  the  well-grown  man  is 
self-mastered,  and  rules  his  feelings,  not  they  him. 
The  feelings  may  be  made  the  end  of  the  man's  spir- 
itual experience ;  he  may  stop  with  emotion  and  go  no 
farther.  Such  men  remain  children,  and  become  no 
more.  If  a  man  cultivates  his  affectional  feelings, 
but  does  not  put  them  to  their  natural  work,  then  the 
feelings  become  sickly  and  morbid,  and  dwindle  into 
mere  sentimentalism.  The  sentimentalist  is  one  of  the 
unfortunate  productions  of  society,  a  victim  of  circum- 
stances, like  the  drunkard  and  the  thief.  He  nurses 
his  feelings,  perhaps,  on  novels,  full  of  ovenvrought 
descriptions,  high-flown  expressions,  ghastly  sorrows, 
and  impossible  delights,  and  weeps  at  the  ideal  woes 
which  are  pictured  there ;  or  if  of  graver  turn,  indulges 
in  martyrologies,  tales  of  dreadful  wrongs  which  man 
heaps  on  man.  These  furnish  excitement  to  his  feeK 
ings,  the  man  dwells  in  dreams  of  incessant  emotion ; 
but  you  may  ask  of  him  any  noble  deed  of  self-denial, 
any  sacrifice  for  humanity,  to  give  up  a  single  pleasure 
for  an  actual  suff'ering  man, —  and  you  may  as  well 
look  for  violets  in  a  Siberian  winter.  I  know  such 
men,  and  still  more  such  women,  from  whom  I  should 
never  look  for  any  thing  in  the  shape  of  works.  With 
them  sympathy  is  a  delight,  and  the  greater  the  suf- 
fering which  calls  it  out,  the  greater  the  delight ;  com- 
passion is  a  luxury.  Some  of  these  pass  for  philan- 
thropists. They  are  only  moonlight  philanthropists. 
They  would  like  to  go  down  on  their  knees  to  serve 


142   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

some  fabulous  queen  who  had  been  carried  off  in  an 
encounter,  on  the  back  of  a  green  dragon,  and  they 
dream  of  doing  some  such  deed  as  that ;  but  they  could 
not  teach  the  cook  who  lives  in  their  own  house  her 
letters,  nor  watch  with  a  sick  friend  all  night,  nor  go 
without  their  dinner  to  save  a  common  life  of  such 
persons  as  they  meet  in  the  streets  every  day.  A  sen- 
timental philanthropy  is  worth  just  as  much  as  a  chain- 
cable  made  of  glass. 

Here  is  another  form  of  the  abortive  development 
of  feeling.  The  religious  feelings  may  suffer  a  similar 
estoppel,  and  dwindle  into  mysticism  and  mere  quietism. 
Men,  oftener  women,  may  have  great  warmth  of  feel- 
ing,—  love  of  God,  trust  in  God,  reverence  for  God, 
delight  in  God,  prayer  to  God,  thought  of  God, — 
which  yet  has  no  influence  on  the  life.  It  bends  the 
knees,  keeps  Sunday  idle,  crowds  the  meeting-house, 
makes  a  market-place  for  religious  books  at  home,  to 
mingle  with  other  finery,  where  on  the  same  table  you 
shall  see  "  puffs,  powders,  patches.  Bibles,  billets-doux." 
It  never  opens  the  purse  towards  the  poor,  nor  turns 
the  capitalist's  money  to  building  reasonable  tenements 
for  them.  When  men  seek  religion  as  a  means  of 
pleasure,  to  cultivate  emotions  of  trust  and  love  of 
God  for  their  own  selfish  delight,  it  becomes  as  fatal 
to  them  as  the  gaming-house,  the  drinking-shop,  or 
the  brothel.  There  is  a  literature  which  feeds  this 
mode  of  action.  There  are  other  libraries  besides  that 
of  Don  Quixote  which  ought  to  go  the  same  way  as 
his  went.  The  very  Inquisition  itself  was  built  up  and 
is  sustained  by  men  who  riot  in  mere  voluptuousness 
of  religious  emotion  and  stop  there.  These  are  the 
dangers  of  a  wrong  cultivation  of  the  feelings. 


I 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    143 

MEANNESS  AND  GENEROSITY 

Generosity  and  meanness  are  to  each  other  as  heaven, 
and  hell,  the  two  extremes  of  disposition  and  conduct 
in  our  mode  of  dealing  with  other  men.  Generosity  is 
a  certain  manly  and  womanly  virtue,  raised  to  a  high 
power;  meanness  is  an  unmanly  and  unwomanly  vice, 
carried  down  to  the  last  degree.  One  is  benevolence, 
felt  with  joy  and  achieved  with  alacrity;  the  other  is 
selfishness  cherished  in  the  heart,  rolled  as  a  sweet 
morsel  under  the  tongue,  and  applied  in  life  to  the 
fullest  extent.  Each  may  be  regarded  as  an  internal 
disposition, —  that  is,  a  mode  of  feeling,  a  form  of 
character ;  and  also  as  an  outward  manifestation, —  a 
mode  of  action,  a  form  of  conduct.  As  an  inward 
disposition,  meanness  is  that  kind  of  selfishness  which 
would  harm  another  whom  it  has  at  a  disadvantage; 
it  is  injustice  mixed  with  cowardice,  and  put  into  a 
form  not  only  wicked,  but  hateful  to  our  sense  of  right. 
It  is  a  most  unhandsome  emotion.  On  the  other  hand, 
generosity,  as  an  inward  disposition,  is  that  kind  of 
benevolence  which  wishes  well  to  such  as  it  has  at  dis- 
advantage, and  changes  a  power  to  hurt  and  harm 
into  a  power  to  help;  it  is  justice  mixed  with  cour- 
ageous love,  directed  towards  men  whom  it  might  se- 
cretly injure  and  harm  for  its  advantage,  but  whom 
it  chooses  to  help  and  bless  for  their  own  profit. 

Now  let  us  look  at  meanness  in  its  outward  mani- 
festation ;  first  as  showing  itself  in  things  which  are 
measurable  by  money,  which  is  pecuniary  meanness, 
and  next  in  respect  to  things  not  thus  measurable, 
which  is  meanness  of  behavior.  First,  of  pecuniary 
meanness.  Thrift  is  ability  to  master  the  material 
world,    securing    power    thereover,    use    and    beauty 


144      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

therefrom,  comfort  and  elegance  therein.  Man  is  by 
his  instinctive  nature  a  hoarding  animal ;  by  his  intel- 
lectual consciousness  he  is  also  progressively  thrifty. 
Our  civilization  is  the  child  of  time  and  of  thrift. 
No  nation,  no  man,  no  woman,  was  ever  too  thrifty, 
more  than  too  strong,  too  healthy,  too  handsome,  or 
too  wise.  Thrift  is  a  point  which  is  common,  on  the 
one  hand,  to  generosity,  on  the  other,  to  meanness.  It 
is  their  point  of  starting ;  and  starting  thence,  Amos 
slopes  up  to  generosity,  a  continual  ascent,  while  Fran- 
cis pitches  down  to  meanness,  a  perpetual  stumble,  an 
everlasting  descent,  getting  steeper  and  steeper  as  he 
goes  down,  for  the  farther  he  goes  in  his  meanness 
the  faster  he  becomes  mean.  Now  in  his  pecuniary 
dealings  with  men,  man  mixes  his  thrift  with  selfishness, 
leavening  that  bread  into  ugly,  misshapen,  and  nau- 
seous lumps,  which  he  thereby  embitters  and  also  poi- 
sons. So  his  thrifty  desire  becomes  covetousness,  an 
ungodly  longing  for  something  which  is  not  his,  and 
his  thrifty  conduct  becomes  avarice,  miserliness ;  that 
is,  getting  what  he  wants  without  paying  the  natural 
price  therefor,  or  the  getting  of  his  own  on  terms 
which  are  unjust,  unmanly,  wicked,  and  so  manifoldly 
contemptible.  An  ingenious  man  thus  distinguishes 
rheumatism  and  gout :  "Put  your  hand  in  an  iron  vice, 
and  let  some  one  screw  it  up  as  tight  as  you  can  bear, 
and  that  is  rheumatism ;  then  give  the  screw  another 
turn,  and  that  is  gout."  Now,  what  rheumatism  is  to 
gout,  avarice  is  to  meanness ;  give  the  covetous  screw 
another  turn,  and  that  is  pecuniary  meanness.  The 
mean  man  is  not  courageous  enough  to  turn  the  screw 
openly  by  daylight ;  he  does  it  by  stealth,  and  in  dark- 
ness,—  for  meanness  is  not  only  injustice,  but  it  is  a 
cowardly  and  sneaking  vice  in  the  form  of  its  injustice. 


I 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    145 

To  make  the  matter  more  clear,  let  me  give  some 
examples  of  meanness  which  have  come  before  me  in 
my  early  or  my  later  life,  taken  chiefly  from  a  distance, 
and  from  persons  I  think  unknown  to  you ;  for  it  is  not 
any  specific  individual  that  I  wish  to  hit,  but  the  vice 
itself. 

One  cold  winter  day,  in  my  boyhood,  a  wealthy 
farmer  in  my  native  town  put  on  his  sled  a  cord  and  a 
half  of  green  poplar  wood,  which  looks  very  much  like 
the  best  of  hickory,  but  is  good  for  nothing ;  —  it  will 
not  burn  in  the  present  state  of  the  arts  and  sciences. 
With  his  oxen  he  drove  his  team  to  Boston,  reaching 
the  town  a  little  before  dark,  at  an  hour  uncommon  for 
teams  of  wood  to  enter  the  city.  He  stopped  in  Cam- 
bridge Street,  pulled  out  a  stake  from  his  sled,  and 
dropped  down  a  portion  of  his  load  into  the  street, 
pretending  he  had  met  with  an  accident,  and  was  un- 
able to  proceed  any  farther.  "  Why  did  you  come  so 
late?  "  said  the  neighbors.  "  Oh,"  said  he,  "  I  had 
promised  the  load  to  a  certain  man.  It  is  the  best 
kind  of  wood,  and  is  going  to  pay  me  a  reasonable 
price.  I  could  easily  unload  it  and  get  home  before 
night.  But  I  met  with  this  accident."  A  black  man 
offered  to  buy  the  wood,  and  the  farmer  offered  it  at 
what  he  called  a  lower  price,  at  a  dollar  and  a  quarter 
a  foot.  The  black  man  took  it,  helped  the  farmer  to 
unload,  paid  him  his  money,  and  asked  him  to  stay  to 
supper,  which  the  farmer  declined,  because  the  pur- 
chaser was  a  black  man,  and  passed  over  the  bridge 
homewards,  leaving  the  wood,  which  to  the  man  who 
bought  it  was  worth  no  more  for  fuel  than  so  much 
ice ;  and  when  he  got  home  he  told  the  story.  It  was 
one  of  the  earliest  examples  of  meanness  that  came  to 
my  boyish  consciousness.  I  have  met  with  many  of 
XI— 10 


146   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

the  same  sort  since,  seldom  quite  so  bad  in  form,  but 
sometimes  even  worse. 

Here  is  another.  A  poor  man  was  a  rum-seller  in  a 
little  country  town  in  Middlesex  county,  and  another 
yet  poorer  man,  who  loved  his  neighbor's  tap  better 
than  his  own  house  or  his  family,  had  incurred  a  debt 
at  the  dealer's  shop  to  the  amount  of  ten  or  twelve  dol- 
lars, but  he  had  no  means  to  pay.  "  I'll  put  you  in 
jail,"  said  the  creditor.  It  was  years  ago  when  the 
statute-book  of  Massachusetts  was  deformed  by  that 
wicked  law  of  imprisonment  for  debt.  The  man  an- 
swered, "  You  had  better  not ;  you  will  have  to  pay  my 
board  all  winter;  it  is  now  November;  I  have  little  to 
do  this  season,  and  I  shall  live  better  at  your  cost  in  jail 
than  by  my  own  little  earnings  at  home,  and  when  the 
March  Court  comes  in,  I  shall  swear  out,  and  you  will 
have  nothing  for  your  debt,  and  will  have  incurred  great 
expense  to  support  me."  "  Then  I  will  attach  your 
property,"  said  the  creditor.  "  I  have  not  any  thing 
except  my  furniture  and  a  pig,  and  the  law  allows  me 
that.  Wait  till  spring,  when  my  work  begins  again, 
and  I  will  pay  you."  The  creditor  thought  of  it. 
The  poor  man  had  a  pig,  which  was  exempt  from  at- 
tachment, a  thrifty  animal  which  had  been  fattened 
for  the  winter,  and  was  worth  twenty  or  twenty-five 
dollars.  It  was  the  food  of  the  family,  granaried  up 
in  a  pen.  A  few  days  after,  the  rum-seller  met  his 
debtor,  and  pretended  some  compassion  on  him,  and 
gave  him  a  little  runty  pig,  not  worth  two  dollars. 
"  Take  this,"  said  he,  "  carry  him  home ;  it  won't  cost 
you  much  to  keep  him  through  the  winter,  after  you 
have  killed  your  great  one,  and  next  year  he  will  be- 
come a  large  animal."  The  poor  man  gratefully  took 
it  home.     Then  he  had  two  swine,  one  more  than  the 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    147 

law  exempted  from  attachment.  And  the  next  day,  at 
the  creditor's  command,  the  sheriff  attached  the  fat 
swine,  and  the  poor  man  was  left  to  look  to  the  win- 
ter and  the  rum-seller's  conscience  for  his  children's 
bread. 

Many  years  ago,  in  a  large  town  of  America,  there 
lived  a  wealthy  man,  owning  a  million  of  money  and 
more,  got  by  meanness  and  excessive  thrift.  One  Sun- 
day evening,  accompanied  by  his  daughter,  he  visited 
his  son  in  another  part  of  the  city,  and  remained  some 
hours.  The  merchant  was  old,  the  night  stonny,  the 
streets  full  of  ice.  The  daughter  could  not  walk  home. 
A  coach  came  for  her,  the  father  put  her  in,  and  to  save 
his  twenty-five  cents  refused  to  ride ;  and  when  the 
driver  said,  "  Why,  really,  sir,  I  think  you  had  better ;  it 
is  very  slippery,  and  you  are  likely  to  fall  on  the  ice 
and  be  hurt,  so  old  a  man  as  you  are,  begging  your 
pardon !  "  "  Oh,  no,"  said  the  millionnaire,  "  I  will 
run  across  and  get  home  before  you  do.  I  shall  not 
fall ;  I  am  not  afraid."  The  carriage  started,  and  the 
millionaire  stealthily  jumped  on  behind  and  rode  home. 
When  nearly  at  his  own  door  he  leaped  down  and 
ran  fonvard,  hypocritically  puffing  and  blowing,  as 
if  he  had  walked  briskly  through  the  snow.  He  was 
too  cowardly  to  steal  the  twenty-five  cents  from  the 
coachman's  pocket,  and  he  more  sneakingly  stole  it 
out  from  the  hind  end  of  his  coach. 

But  the  forms  of  this  pecuniary  meanness  could  not 
be  counted  in  one  hour,  nor  in  many,  for  their  name  is 
legion ;  but  they  are  always  the  same  devil.  One  other 
example,  however,  which  I  knew  in  a  distant  town,  is 
too  striking  to  be  passed  by,  and  too  often  repeated  not 
to  need  condemnation.  A  poor  young  man,  fighting 
for    his    education,    working    whilst    he    studied,    and 


148   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

teaching  while  he  essayed  to  learn,  once  opened  a 
school,  where  he  taught  all  manner  of  English  branches 
for  four  dollars  a  quarter,  and  other  higher  discipline 
and  various  foreign  and  dead  languages  for  five  dol- 
lars a  quarter ;  and  the  quarter  was  twelve  whole  weeks. 
One  of  the  wealthiest  men  in  the  town,  who  had  a 
bright  boy  whom  he  wished  fitted  for  college,  urged 
our  poor  schoolmaster  to  take  his  son  and  teach  him 
Latin  and  mathematics  for  the  smaller  price,  and  thus 
robbed  him  of  four  dollars  a  year,  which  was  nothing 
to  the  father,  but  to  the  schoolmaster  was  what  the  one 
ewe  lamb  was  to  the  poor  man  in  the  Old  Testament 
story  of  Nathan  and  King  David. 

Sometimes  a  man  sneaks  away  from  the  assessors,  and 
hides  his  property  from  taxation,  leaving  the  uncon- 
cealed property  of  honest  men  to  bear  the  public  bur- 
den. It  is  a  thing  not  at  all  uncommon  for  a  man  with 
great  property  to  move  out  of  Boston  at  the  end  of 
April  in  order  to  escape  the  assessor  of  taxes  on  the  first 
of  May,  and  thus  leave  the  burden  to  be  borne  by 
widows  and  orphans,  mechanics  and  small  traders,  who 
either  could  not,  or  else  would  not,  escape  the  duty 
which  is  common  to  all.  Then,  how  many  examples  do 
we  all  know  of  men  who  will  not  pay  their  honest  debts, 
and  yet  are  wealthy  and  have  the  means  of  doing  it. 
Safe  from  the  law,  they  recognize  no  higher  law  above 
the  statute  which  gives  them  exemption  to  enjoy  the 
money  which  they  have  legally  filched  from  honest 
hands.  In  little  towns  of  New  England,  lectures  are 
sometimes  given  to  the  public  without  any  charge  to  the 
specific  individuals  who  attend  them ;  so  that  no  man 
through  lack  of  money  may  be  debarred  of  the  pleasure 
or  instruction  derived  from  listening  to  the  words  of 
some  man  of  genius,  talent,  or  learning.     The  expenses 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  149 

are  paid  by  a  general  subscription,  where  each  gives 
what  he  will,  and  in  such  cases  it  sometimes  happens 
that  a  man  with  property  enough  refuses  to  pay  any 
thing,  but  yet  crowds  in  with  his  family,  and  takes  ad- 
vantage of  what  his  neighbors  paid  for.  Nay,  in  all 
churches  where  the  cost  is  defrayed  by  the  voluntary 
gift  of  such  as  will,  who  contribute  each  according  to 
his  several  ability  or  inclination,  there  are  always  men 
who  partake  of  the  advantage,  but  decline  their  part 
of  the  payment,  and  thus,  as  the  Methodists  say,  they 
steal  their  preaching.  The  law  punishes  getting  goods 
on  false  pretences,  but  leaves  untouched  that  other 
kind  of  swindling,  getting  religion  on  false  pretences. 

No  man  can  judge  of  what  is  meanness  in  another; 
you  and  I  can  judge  of  the  appearance.  There  is  One 
who  looketh  into  the  heart,  and  doubtless  there  are  those 
who  to  the  eyes  of  men  seem  mean,  and  certainly  draw 
upon  themselves  the  reproach  of  their  brothers,  whose 
hearts  are  yet  open  and  generous ;  and  when  the  dear 
God  looks  in  He  sa3^s,  "  Well  done,  good  and  faithful 
servants ! "  Towards  those  persons  I  would  bow  in 
reverential  admiration,  giving  them  my  poor  applause 
and  support,  standing  between  them  and  the  harshness 
of  the  world,  which  sees  not  with  the  divine  eyes. 

I  have  heard  of  mean  parishes,  who  received  the 
labors  of  some  faithful  and  unworldly  minister  all  the 
sound  3'ears  of  his  life,  and  in  his  old  age  put  a  new 
man  into  his  pulpit,  which  was  right,  but  left  the  old 
man's  hairs,  which  age  had  whitened,  to  be  scattered  by 
poverty,  and  brouglit  down  to  tlie  grave  with  sorrow 
and  shame  at  the  ingratitude  which  he  was  too  generous 
to  call  even  by  its  name.  But,  to  the  honor  of  Puritan 
New  England,  let  me  add  that  such  cases  are  exceed- 
ingly rare.      Now  and  then  I  have  seen  a  mean  minister 


150   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

who  filched  money  from  his  congregation  on  all  occa- 
sions, and  stealthily  got  what  he  never  paid  for  nor 
gave  to  the  poor,  but  ate  his  morsel  by  himself,  the 
fatherless  not  eating  it  with  him,  nor  the  poor  getting 
warmed  by  the  fleece  of  his  sheep.  For  such  a  minister 
I  hope  I  might  be  forgiven  if  I  should  feel  something 
which  came  near  to  contempt.  But  I  rejoice  to  think 
that  that  vice  is  very  uncommon  ;  for  of  all  the  educated 
men  in  New  England,  I  think  that  no  class  is  so  gen- 
erous with  money  as  the  ministers,  who  contribute  their 
little  means  with  rare  freedom  from  stint.  And  this 
is  the  distinguishing  peculiarity  of  no  sect,  but  com- 
mon to  all  of  them,  from  the  Episcopalian  to  the 
Universalist ;  and  it  is  no  wonder,  for  how  could  this 
difficult  virtue  fail  to  be  kept  by  men  who  read  the 
New  Testament  in  public,  Sunday  out  and  Sunday  in, 
and  in  private  fold  it  to  their  bosoms,  counting  it  as 
the  Word  of  God? 

Now,  let  us  consider  meanness  of  behavior.  An 
angry  man  strikes  his  foe  with  all  his  might;  a  mean 
man  strikes  him  after  he  has  got  him  down.  I  shall 
never  forget  a  mean  boy  I  knew  when  at  school.  He 
loved  fighting,  and  delighted  to  set  other  boys  at 
blows,  while  himself  looked  on,  and  now  and  then  he 
gave  a  kick,  always  to  the  vanquished  party,  and  never 
to  him  except  when  he  was  on  the  ground.  Sometimes 
he  would  beat  a  small  boy,  but  never  took  one  of  his 
own  size.  He  insulted  girls,  when  bigger  boys  were 
not  by  to  redress  the  insult  with  that  summary  justice 
which  comes  out  of  the  fists  of  boys.  He  would  whis- 
per envious  and  revengeful  thoughts  into  the  unwilling 
ears  of  others.  I  learned  a  terrible  lesson  from  him 
in  my  early  life,  and  cannot  think  of  the  tyrant  with- 
out shuddering  that  such  a  devil  should  have  crossed 
my  path  in  my  childhood. 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    151 

Here  is  a  mean  man  who  abuses  his  employers'  confi- 
dence, cheats  them  behind  their  backs,  wastes  their 
goods,  consumes  their  time,  leaves  their  work  undone. 
So  he  gets  his  daily  wages  by  daily  swindling.  I  meet 
men  of  this  kind,  in  their  divers  forms,  throughout 
society.  Here  is  one,  a  servant  of  a  railroad,  who 
squanders  its  stock.  Here  is  another,  a  conductor, 
»  who  charges  men  for  riding,  and  puts  the  price  into 
his  own  pocket.  Here  is  another,  ruler  of  a  nation, 
using  his  great  official  power  to  plant  slavery  where 
slavery  never  was. 

Here  is  another  mean  man,  who  started  from  an 
humble  position  in  society,  and  has  risen  therefrom, 
mounting  on  mone^^ ;  but  now  he  is  ashamed  he  was 
ever  poor,  ashamed  of  industry  and  economy  which 
helped  him  up,  and,  still  worse,  ashamed  of  the  poor 
relations  whom  he  left  behind  him  in  the  narrow  street 
or  the  little  village  where  he  was  born ;  nay,  worse  than 
that,  he  seeks  to  keep  men  poor,  whom  he  uses  as  his 
instruments  for  accumulating  his  own  estate.  His 
money  gives  him  increase  of  power  to  help  mankind ; 
he  uses  it  to  hinder  mankind.  When  he  was  an  obscure 
and  poor  young  man  he  went  to  meeting  in  some  little 
Methodist,  Baptist,  or  other  unfashionable  church,  and 
the  minister  and  deacon  and  standing  committee  wel- 
comed him,  saying,  "  Come  in !  We  read  St.  James. 
There  is  no  difference  between  the  rich  man  with  his 
costly  garments  and  the  poor  man  with  his  humble 
attire.  The  rich  and  the  poor  meet  together,  and  one 
God  is  the  maker  of  them  all.  Come  in,  and  perhaps 
you  also  will  see  God,  who  speaks  to  our  hearts  in  our 
humbleness."  Now  that  he  has  got  rich  and  famous, 
he  takes  his  money  to  some  fashionable  church,  not 
going  there  to  see  God,  but  in  order  that  men  may 
see  him. 


152      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

Here  is  a  mean  editor,  who  flatters  the  popular  vices, 
which  he  yet  despises.  He  praises  all  the  popular 
great  men,  though  he  has  contempt  for  them  in  his 
heart,  and  is  sure  to  attack  every  one  who  seeks  to 
remove  a  popular  vice ;  no  term  of  reproach  is  too  se- 
vere or  too  scurrilous  for  him  to  hurl  at  the  head  of 
such  as  advocate  any  unpopular  reform.  How  he 
jeers  at  every  woman  who  pays  her  tax,  and  asks  to 
have  a  voice  in  disposing  of  the  money.  Every  eighth 
man  in  America  is  a  slave,  and  if  you  say  aught  against 
bondage,  Mr.  Popular  Bitterquill  shoots  his  venom 
at  you  the  next  day,  and  all  his  kith  and  kin,  from 
Madawaska  to  Sacramento,  repeat  the  virulence.  He 
never  tells  you  of  American  ships  detected  in  the  slave- 
trade  and  captured,  even  by  Brazilian  cruisers ;  but 
if  an  honest  man  has  spoken  against  the  wickedness 
of  the  Union,  he  is  denounced  at  once  as  a  traitor. 

Sometimes  you  see  a  minister  mean  in  his  behavior. 
Mr.  Littlefaith  was  a  man  of  large  intellectual  powers, 
of  costly  education,  and  commensurate  learning;  he 
had  got  over  that  superstition  which  blocked  the  wheels 
of  most  of  his  parishioners.  They'  gave  him  the  bread 
he  ate,  put  on  him  the  garments  he  wore,  built  him  the 
house  he  lived  in,  paid  for  his  costly  books  in  divers 
tongues ;  and  by  their  actions,  when  the  parish  came  up 
before  him,  and  in  their  prayerful-looking  faces  as  they 
sat  under  his  eye,  they  said,  "  O  Mr.  Scholar,  we  cannot 
read  your  learned  books ;  we  have  not  the  time,  nor  the 
patience,  nor  the  culture.  Thrash  out  for  us  the 
kernel  of  that  broad  literary  field,  and  then  give  us  the 
pure  precious  grains  of  wheat,  that  we  also  may  have 
the  bread  of  life ;  for  why  rhould  we  die,  not  only  in 
trespasses  and  sins,  but  in  superstition,  in  fear  and 
trembling.?     Point  out  the  errors  of  our  public  creed, 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  153 

rebuke  the  sins  of  our  private  conduct."  And  the 
minister,  communing  with  himself,  said,  "  No,  Mr. 
Christian  Parish!  If  I  tell  you  the  truth  I  have 
learned,  and  you  have  paid  me  for  looking  after,  I  shall 
get  the  hatred  of  such  men  as  neither  look  after  it,  nor 
wish  for  it,  nor  see  it.  I  think  I  shall  tell  you  no  such 
thing."  By  and  by  another  minister,  simpler  hearted 
and  younger,  rises  up.  He  sees  the  truth  which  the 
first  minister  saw,  and  with  fear  and  trembling,  with 
prayers  and  tears  of  agony  and  bloody  sweat,  he  tells 
it  to  mankind  with  what  mildness  he  may ;  and  the 
Philistines  and  Pharisees  all  cry  out,  "  Away  with 
such  a  fellow!  It  is  not  meet  that  he  should  live. 
If  we  cannot  give  him  damnation  in  the  next  life,  we 
will  roast  him  with  our  torments  in  this."  Mr.  Little- 
faith  comes  forward  and  casts  the  heaviest  stone,  and 
persecutes  the  new  minister  with  the  intensest  bitterness 
and  hate.  Of  all  the  meanness  I  have  spoken  of 
hitherto,  this  is  the  meanest.  It  is  meanness  in  the 
place  of  piety,  meanness  in  the  name  of  God. 

I  wonder  that  any  man  can  be  mean.  I  take  it  that 
no  man,  no  woman,  would  prefer  disease  to  health, 
ugliness  to  beauty,  weakness  before  strength.  What 
would  you  think  of  a  man  who  had  his  choice  of  clean 
health,  of  active  limbs  and  senses,  which  at  five  portals 
let  in  the  handsome  world  of  strength  and  beauty,  and 
yet  preferred  disease,  and  by  his  own  choice  became 
coated  with  a  leprosy  all  over,  and  was  ugly  as  the 
devil?  Yet  I  would  take  disease,  foulest  leprosy,  loss 
of  limbs,  these  hands,  these  feet,  the  loss  of  every  sense, 
these  eyes,  my  ears  that  listen  to  man's  voice  or  woman's 
speech  of  gold,  rather  than  be  barked  about  and  dis- 
membered by  such  meanness  as  I  sometimes  see.  Look 
at  that  man !     He  is  mean  in  his  pocket,  mean  in  his 


154   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

opinions,  mean  in  his  behavior,  mean  in  his  shop,  mean 
in  the  street,  afraid  of  a  charity,  mean  in  his  house, 
a  mean  husband  and  swindles  his  wife,  a  mean  father 
and  wrongs  his  children,  mean  everywhere.  Pass  him 
by ;  he  is  too  pitiful  to  look  upon !  Meanness  has 
three  degrees ;  it  is  first  earthly,  it  is  sensual,  and, 
finally,  it  is  devilish. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  more  pleasing  contemplation 
of  generosity.  What  a  beautiful  excellence  it  is ! 
Whether  manifested  in  the  pecuniary  form  of  money, 
or  of  behavior,  it  is  still  the  same  thing, —  justice 
mixed  with  love,  leavened  into  beauty.  It  is  both  a 
manly  and  a  womanly  virtue,  so  fair  and  sweet  that  it 
is  always  alike  pleasant  and  profitable  to  dwell  thereon ; 
for,  as  in  the  thick  of  the  crowd,  and  the  dust  or  mud 
of  the  streets,  of  a  cloudy  and  dark  windy  day,  you 
sometimes  meet  face  to  face  with  some  sweet  coun- 
tenance, so  radiant  with  beauty  that  all  the  street 
seems  luminous  with  light,  filling  your  eye,  and  you 
pass  on,  a  certain  sense  of  a  beatitude  trickling  down 
your  consciousness  all  day  long,  to  be  remembered 
with  thankfulness  years  after  in  your  evening  prayer, 
—  so  do  I  feel  towards  generosity ;  and  as  beauty  is 
handsome  in  any  robe,  for  nothing  fits  it  ill,  and  all 
becomes  what  is  itself  so  becoming  to  each,  and  so 
draws  the  eye  in  all  stations  where  this  sunbeam  may 
chance  to  light,  so  is  generosity  attractive  and  en- 
nobling to  look  upon  in  any  of  its  forms,  pecuniary, 
corporeal,  or  of  the  spirit. 

Generosity  implies  self-denial  of  low  appetites,  so 
that  you  prefer  another,  and  postpone  yourself,  set- 
ting his  comfort  above  your  luxury,  his  indispensable 
necessity  before  your  comfort,  and  putting  also  your 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  155 

soul  with  its  higher  aspirations  before  your  body  with 
its  grosser  needs.  And  yet  the  generous  man  does  not 
count  it  self-denial ;  no,  rather  it  is  manifold  letting 
loose  and  indulgence  of  his  nobler  elements ;  for  as  the 
water  runs  down  and  the  fire  flames  up,  so  the  generous 
man  does  of  his  proper  motion  ascend, —  to  him  a 
descent,  the  fall  of  meanness,  being  as  adverse  as  for 
the  flame  to  run  down  or  the  water  up.  I  wonder  if 
my  experience  has  been  peculiar  to  me,  or  is  there 
really  so  much  generosity  in  the  world  as  there  seems  to 
me,  and  do  others  likewise  so  abundantly  meet  there- 
with? For  though  I  have  found  rough  places  in  the 
earth,  and  trod  them  barefoot  besides,  and  cloudy 
nights  above,  yet  have  I  also  met  with  such  as  made  the 
rough  places  smooth,  and  continually  in  space  do  the 
clouds  turn  out  their  silver  lining  on  the  night,  or  a 
white  star  trembling  through  looks  so  generous  that  all 
the  sky  below  seems  fair,  as  it  reveals  the  handsome- 
ness of  that  sweet  heaven  above,  beyond  all  reach  of 
actual  storm.  Everywhere  do  I  find  less  meanness  and 
more  generosity. 

A  ticket-seller  at  a  railroad  counter  the  other  day 
told  me  of  a  mean  man,  who  inherited  a  large  estate, 
he  being  the  only  child.  He  had  a  pew  in  the  Orthodox 
meeting-house,  whereof  he  was  church  member,  and 
he  let  a  seat  to  a  poor  woman  for  three  dollars  a  year. 
She  lived  miles  away,  and  could  not  always  come 
through  the  snow  and  rain.  When  twelve  months  were 
gone  by,  she  told  him  she  should  not  want  his  seat 
again,  and  off"ered  him  his  money.  He  counted  up 
the  Sundays  since  first  she  came  to  his  seat,  and  found 
that  she  had  kept  it  one  more  than  there  were  Sundays 
in  his  Christian  year,  and  so  he  demanded  six  and  a 
quarter   cents  besides.     But  that   was  a   solitary   ex- 


156   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

ample ;  the  whole  church  could  not  furnish  another ; 
nay,  the  village,  in  its  two  hundred  years  of  municipal 
life,  could  not  tell  such  another  story ;  and  every  finger 
in  the  town  pointed  at  the  man  till  the  grave  closed  over 
him,  and  it  points  to  his  gravestone  to  this  day.  The 
fact  that  this  was  an  exception  shows  the  generosity 
of  the  little  town. 

On  nights  of  journeying,  and  at  other  times  of  sleep- 
lessness, I  sometimes  think  over  the  generous  men  and 
women  I  have  known,  recounting  their  liberal  deeds, 
which  spread  out  before  me  like  a  wide  meadow  in  June, 
beautiful  with  buttercups,  and  fragrant  with  clover  and 
strawberries  newly  ripe,  deeds  which  their  actors  have 
long  since  forgot,  and  which  I,  of  all  living  men,  am 
now  perhaps  the  only  one  who  can  remember  and  re- 
count. As  these  come  up  before  me,  at  this  transient 
resurrection  of  the  just  and  generous,  my  eyes  brim 
and  run  over  with  thanks  to  the  dear  God  who  gives 
such  gifts  unto  men,  and  created  us  with  a  nature 
that  bears  this  harvest  of  nobility,  as  New  England 
soil  grows  oaks  and  pines,  the  natural  herbage  of 
that  generous  ground.  I  am  not  insensible  to  that 
cloudy  meanness  which  sometimes  shuts  down  and 
gathers  in  about  us,  but  some  generous  star  always 
relieves  the  gloom,  and  shines  a  good  deed  in  what 
were  else  a  naughty  world,  and  tells  of  that  whole 
heaven  of  generosity  into  whose  calm  depths  meanness 
can  never  come.  For  each  example  of  meanness,  I 
have  a  whole  encyclopaedia  of  generosity,  a  vast  litera- 
ture of  generous  men,  and  still  more  of  generous 
women, —  for  this  sweet  violet  of  the  heavenly  spring, 
prophetic  of  a  magnificent  summer,  like  other  tender 
and  delicate  virtues,  thrives  best  in  that  fair  warm 
soil  on  the  feminine  side  of  the  human  hill.     In  all 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  157 

fishing  after  intellectual  prizes,  it  is  the  masculine 
Peters  who  first  draw  the  net  on  the  right  side  of  the 
ship,  and  take  miraculous  draughts  therefrom,  and  the 
net  yet  not  broken.  But  in  the  chase  after  that  higher 
and  well-favored  excellence  of  conscience,  heart,  and 
soul,  it  is  that  other  and  feminine  disciple  who  outruns 
the  bearded  and  broad-shouldered  Peter,  and  first  sees 
the  angels  of  humanity,  finds  the  ascending  nobleness, 
and  tells  the  men  slow  of  heart  in  believing,  that  she 
has  seen  the  Lord. 

Look  now  at  generosity  in  its  pecuniary  form. 
How  much  generosity  of  money  is  this  town  daily  wit- 
ness to,  with  all  its  small  and  great  vices,  its  snobbish 
vulgarity,  and  the  mean  insolence  of  upstarts  who  ride 
on  money.  Spite  of  all  that,  I  think  Boston  is  the 
noblest  city  in  the  world,  surely  the  most  generous 
with  its  money.  Nowhere  on  earth  is  a  miser  less  es- 
teemed, nowhere  so  much  despised.  By  his  money  he 
gets  pecuniary  power  in  the  street,  has  stocks  for  sale, 
dollars  to  let,  houses  and  shops  to  lease,  and  so  of 
course  he  has  commercial  power;  but  through  his  mi- 
serly money  he  acquires  no  political  honor,  not  the 
least.  He  cannot  buy  an  office  of  the  United  States 
Government,  he  can  never  get  any  thing  at  first-hand 
from  the  American  people.  He  gets  no  social  honor. 
True,  he  has  matrimonial  and  ecclesiastical  power,  for 
a  city  is  like  the  "  great  and  wide  sea,  wherein  are 
things  creeping  innumerable,  both  small  and  great 
beasts."  Some  marketable  woman  will  sell  her  body 
to  his  arms ;  some  hireling  minister  will  he  fee  to  praise 
him  while  above  ground,  and  to  deck  him  with 
fancied  virtues  when  below  the  soil ;  some  commercial 
editor,  as  marketable  as  any  thing  in  his  price-current, 
will  hold  him  up  as  a  pattern  for  imitation  ;  the  Mercan- 


158   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

tile  Library  Association,  despising  the  miser,  on  its 
public  days  will  give  him  a  seat  on  its  platform  among 
honorable  merchants ;  nay,  when  the  Cradle  of  Liberty 
spills  out  the  child  of  humanity,  and  men-stealers 
crowd  thitherward,  an  ungodly  pack,  our  mean  rich 
man  has  his  place  on  the  kidnapper's  platform.  That 
is  all  the  honor  the  miser  can  get  in  Boston,  to  the 
credit  of  the  dear  old  Puritan  town,  the  mother  of  sa 
many  virtues.  There  his  money  breaks  down.  He 
gets  no  honors  of  the  people  at  first-hand,  only  old 
damaged  honors  of  the  retailers  and  hucksters  of  such 
things ;  and  least  of  all  can  his  money  bring  him  the 
homage  of  the  heart  which  we  honestly  pay  to  noble- 
ness in  rich  or  poor.  Dead  examples  and  living  still 
reveal  this  remarkable  fact, —  the  names  of  mean  rich 
men  of  the  last  generation  publicly  rot  in  their  merited 
infamy,  and  the  names  of  others  for  the  next  fifty 
years  will  make  some  future  gibbet  creak  with  their 
undying  shame. 

Boston,  all  New  England,  is  rich  in  monuments  of 
pecuniary  generosity.  Look  at  some  which  chronicle 
its  most  conspicuous  acts.  There  is  Harvard  College, 
with  its  schools  of  theology,  law,  medicine,  science,  its 
professorships,  its  libraries, — the  New  England  schol- 
ar's joy  and  honorable  pride;  with  its  charitable  en- 
dowments, which  like  an  arm  from  the  clouds  hold  out 
a  lamp  to  many  a  bright  boy,  or  come  like  the  prophet's 
bird,  bringing  bread  and  flesh  in  its  beak ;  with  its  ob- 
servatory, holding  the  telescope  where  the  eye  of  culti- 
vated genius  looks  through  the  glass  of  commercial 
generosity,  and  beholding  worlds  unseen  to  the  naked 
eye  of  sense,  declares  its  revelation  to  all  mankind. 
These  are  monuments  of  New  England  riches,  trophies 
of  generous  men,  who  provided  for  literature  and  art 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    159 

and  science  which  they  could  not  understand,  but  that 
their  sons  and  the  sons  of  the  people  should  be  made 
glad  thereby;  nay,  such  as  left  no  son  nor  daughter 
have  thus  made  a  long  arm  to  reach  to  countless  gen- 
erations and  do  them  good.  Here  too  is  the  Boston 
City  Library  and  the  Athenaeum,  likewise  fountains  of 
sweet  waters  in  what  were  else  a  literary  wilderness. 
Here  too  are  the  Lowell  Lectures,  where  one  man's 
money  turns  into  wisdom,  science,  and  philosophy  for 
the  people.  Then  behold  the  hospitals  and  asylums 
all  about  the  town,  built  by  private  generosity,  asy- 
lums for  the  needy  and  the  sick,  where  the  rich  man's 
money  is  transfigured  into  the  scientific  mind,  the  skil- 
ful hand,  and  the  affectionate  watchfulness  which 
soothes  the  sick  head  and  cheers  the  fainting  heart. 
Here,  too,  are  asylums  for  the  deaf,  the  dumb,  the 
crazy,  and  the  fool,  and  manifold  other  charities  to 
help  the  widow  and  the  fatherless,  and  those  friend- 
less girls  whom  the  public  leaves  to  die  with  earthly 
damnation,  whereof  some  young  man,  living  in  his 
body,  officiates  as  devil,  or  serves  as  imp. 

Above  all  cities,  Boston  has  an  honorable  fame  for 
the  large  bounty  of  her  wealthy  men.  I  need  not  here 
recall  the  names  of  those  newly  immortal,  who  entail 
riches  on  the  public,  the  dead  hand  of  their  ever-living 
charity  still  scattering  the  wealth  its  gatherers,  heav- 
enly Christians  now,  loved  to  transmute  to  human  ex- 
cellence. But  for  each  one  such,  there  are  hundreds 
of  men  not  largely  rich,  but  not  less  generous,  whose 
generosity  is  not  seen.  We  mark  the  lightning,  we 
hear  the  thunder,  but  there  is  a  noiseless  passage  of 
electricity  from  the  earth  to  the  sky,  which  every  day 
is  a  million  times  stronger  than  the  thunder  and  light- 
ning in  the  heeded  storm.     Where  there  is  one  rich  man 


160   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

who  sweeps  up  the  crumbs  that  fall  from  his  table, 
and  nobly  makes  thereof  a  public  gift,  there  are  a 
thousand  men  who  cut  a  morsel  from  their  needy  loaf, 
and  stint  their  humble  meal ;  but  it  is  not  told  of, 
though  it  feeds  the  poor  man's  babies,  or  helps  the 
scholar  on  his  upward  way.  Let  us  honor  the  gen- 
erosity of  the  millionaire,  but  not  forget  the  generosity 
of  the  hand-cartman  or  the  hod-carrier,  who  spares  six- 
pence from  his  daily  drink  or  tobacco,  or  goes  supper- 
less  to  bed,  to  help  the  widow  or  the  baby  of  another 
man  who  drew  a  hand-cart.  These  things  you  and  I 
do  not  see ;  there  is  One  who  beholds  them,  and  gives  the 
reward.  No  Pharisee  saw  the  widow's  two  mites ;  some 
vulgar  rich  man  probably  turned  off  with  scorn;  but 
Jesus  said  she  had  given  more  than  they  all,  and  now 
they  are  a  gospel  all  round  the  world.  They  are  a 
Bible  Society  of  themselves.  The  great  funds  of  the 
Bible  Society,  the  vast  expenditures  of  the  Society  for 
Foreign  Missions,  the  money  which  builds  all  the  meet- 
ing-houses of  New  England,  Catholic  and  Protestant, 
are  accumulated  mostly  by  small  driblets  from  the 
people,  a  shilling  here,  a  dollar  there.  Nay,  the  proud 
library  of  Harvard  College  was  founded  by  a  few  min- 
isters, giving  or  lending  such  books  as  they  could  spare. 
Massachusetts  once  taxed  herself,  making  every  house- 
holder pay  one  shilling,  or  a  peck  of  com,  to  Harvard 
College.  It  is  a  magnificent  monument  to  the  gen- 
erosity of  the  old  Puritanic  State,  and  she  did  this 
also  when  her  settlements  only  reached  from  Wey- 
mouth to  Ipswich,  and  did  not  extend  twenty  miles 
inward,  and  besides  she  was  fighting  a  war  with  the 
Indians. 

Here  is  a  man,  surely  not  rich,  who  helps  to  build 
chapels   for  the  poor,  houses   also   of  most  Christian 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  161 

architecture  for  men  of  small  means,  and  with  others' 
eyes  he  watches  for  poor  boys  and  girls  in  the  crowded 
ways  of  Boston,  and  puts  a  piece  of  coin  between  the 
child  of  humanity  and  the  child  of  sin,  and  saves  many 
a  son  and  daughter  from  perdition.  That  counte- 
nance, not  more  beautiful  with  its  natural  comeliness 
than  when  it  is  transfigured  with  generosity,  I  love  to 
look  upon,  when  I  meet  him  in  all  manner  of  philan- 
thropies, at  the  Warren  Street  Chapel,  which  is  almost 
his  child,  in  his  houses  of  comfort  and  of  cheapness 
for  the  poor,  or  on  the  Committee  of  Vigilance,  which 
in  the  hour  of  Boston's  madness  helped  to  watch  in 
keeping  her  children  from  the  stealer's  hand.  When 
public  generosity  halts,  it  is  such  men  who  hold  up 
the  weak  hands,  strengthen  the  feeble  knees,  and  con- 
6rm  the  trembling  heart. 

How  many  young  men  and  women  do  I  know  whose 
generosity  is  a  littl$  excessive,  and  my  older  and  gray 
prudence  must  moderate  their  youthful  experience,  and 
give  back  half  their  benefaction,  lest  the  young  man's 
tap  be  too  much  for  his  barrel.  If  a  bright  boy  at  col- 
lege needs  a  little  assistance,  there  is  always  some  man 
or  woman  who  res^ches  out  a  golden  hand  and  helps 
him  on.  Nay,  in  more  than  one  instance  have  I  known 
the  dead  hand  of  an  old  miser  reach  out  of  the  ground, 
by  entailment  still  clutching  his  money,  and  wishing  to 
spend  it  meanly,  but  some  dear  daughter  held  that  hand 
in  her  bosom,  and  the  leprous  hand,  turned  clean  and 
white  once  more,  scatters  broad  the  charities  that  heal 
and  soothe  and  bless. 

If  a  man  have  a  generous  disposition,  it  will  appear 
not  only  in  the  giving,  but  in  the  mode  of  getting ;  for 
it  is  narrow  generosity  which  looks  only  to  the  spend- 
ing, not  also  to  the  acquisition.      So  let  me  tell  a  gen- 
XI— 11 


162   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

erous  tale  of  a  merchant.  He  was  a  jobber  in  dry 
goods.  One  day  a  country  customer  came  into  his 
store,  and  handed  him  a  memorandum,  a  large  one,  of 
articles  he  wished  to  purchase.  The  generous  man 
looked  it  over,  fixed  the  price  to  each  article,  and  then 
said,  "  The  steamer  came  in  last  night ;  I  have  not  got 
my  letters  yet;  there  may  have  been  a  fall  in  goods, 
and  perhaps  you  had  better  wait  a  couple  of  hours, 
and  go  out  and  inquire,  and  then  come  back."  He 
went  out,  found  the  goods  had  fallen  in  price,  and 
came  back  and  reported  it,  saying  he  could  get  them 
cheaper  elsewhere.  "  Very  well,  that  is  all  right,"  was 
the  reply  of  the  merchant.  There  was  generosity  at 
the  till.  Generosity  which  puts  its  hand  in  and  gives 
out  is  common  enough,  but  generosity  at  the  other 
extreme  is  rarer;  but  is  it  not  the  Golden  Rule,  which 
has  two  ends,  giving  and  getting? 

See  another  form  of  generosity  in  the  manly  use  of 
the  body.  Every  war  brings  to  light  examples  of 
amazing  physical  generosity,  which  yet  surprise  no- 
body because  they  are  so  common.  In  the  Crimean 
War  there  were  only  two  things  which  to  my  eye  were 
admirable ;  one  was  that  heroic  bravery  of  the  manly 
flesh,  the  other  the  more  heroic  bravery  of  the  woman's 
heart,  to  which  I  need  only  refer.  I  have  small  respect 
for  fighting,  not  the  greatest  esteem  for  animal  cour- 
age, in  which  a  bulldog,  I  suppose,  would  be  superior 
to  a  Franklin  or  a  Channing,  perhaps  to  a  Paul ;  but 
I  have  devout  reverence  for  a  man  whose  conscience  is 
in  it,  who  lays  his  life  down  in  a  battle  sooner  than 
relinquish  a  duty ;  great  reverence  for  the  men  who 
have  gone  to  Kansas  to  plant  the  tree  of  freedom  over 
the  heart  of  the  continent,  though  they  are  sure  to 
water  it  with  their  blood,  which  the  national  adminis- 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  163 

tration  meanly  thirsts  to  drink.  This  generosity  com- 
manding the  heroic  flesh  is  common  amongst  men,  not 
rare  amongst  women.  It  appears  everywhere  in  war, 
and  It  appears  elsewhere  when  there  is  no  battle  of 
that  kind  to  be  fought.  In  railroad  disasters,  so  com- 
mon in  America,  how  seldom  do  you  hear  of  any  cow- 
ardice amongst  the  men.  With  what  manly  disdain 
of  death  do  the  engineers,  stokers,  and  brakemen  per- 
form their  dut}',  even  laying  down  their  lives  to  save 
the  lives  of  those  put  under  their  hands.  Here  is  an 
example  of  generosity  which  looks  in  the  same  direc- 
tion. A  railroad  train  not  long  since  was  detained  in 
a  snowbank,  and  the  passengers  had  no  food  for 
thirty  hours ;  and  when  bread  came,  not  a  man  would 
bless  his  mouth  with  a  morsel  till  every  woman  had 
been  abundantly  supplied.  It  did  not  get  into  the 
newspapers ;  the  thing  is  so  common,  we  expect  It 
always.  In  troubles  at  sea,  how  rare  is  It  that  you 
hear  of  any  lack  of  heroism.  I  remember  but  one  ex- 
ample In  ni}^  time :  When  the  "  Arctic,"  ill-built,  ill- 
managed,  ill-manned,  became  a  ruin,  there  was  such  un- 
manly cowardice  as  I  tliink  the  ocean  has  very  seldom 
seen,  or  buried  in  his  broad  and  venerable  breast.  But 
with  what  indignity  was  it  treated  in  all  corners  of 
the  land ;  ever}'  sailor,  from  the  forecastle  to  the  quar- 
terdeck, looked  upon  It  as  a  slight  put  upon  his  own 
profession,  and  we  shall  not  hear  of  such  another  act 
of  cowardice  till  we  are  old  men.  When  a  fire  breaks 
out  in  any  city,  how  noble  men  plunge  Into  the  flames, 
amid  beams  which  blaze  under  them,  and  rafters  which 
fall  burning  from  the  roof,  and  where  red-hot  walls 
bow  and  tremble.  What  heroism  and  generosity  is 
there  in  all  that!  Last  autumn,  when  the  3'ellow  fever 
came  to  Norfolk,  how  did  the  despised  American  slave 


164       THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

come  out  and  share  the  loathsomeness  of  his  master's 
disease,  or  that  of  his  mistress,  waiting  perhaps  on 
some  woman  who  had  robbed  the  stalwart  man  of  his 
manhood  and  made  him  a  beast  of  burden. 

"Forgot  were  hatred,  wrongs,  and  fears; 
The  plaintive  voice  alone  he  hears, 
Sees  but  the  dying  man." 

One  such  who  might  have  escaped  from  the  city, 
when  the  pestilence  had  dismantled  the  guard,  and 
repealed  every  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  when  solicited  to 
leave,  refused  to  abandon  his  master  in  his  distress. 
He  waited  till  he  had  become  healed  of  his  sickness,  and 
then  fled  off,  and  when  questioned,  told  me  the  tale. 
In  one  of  the  large  towns  of  the  North  there  is  a 
youngish  man  who  is  a  mariner.  I  should  not  dare  to 
tell  his  name  or  that  of  his  vessel,  lest  I  should  betray 
his  neck  to  the  Southern  gallows.  Across  the  gulf 
of  African  bondage  this  man  in  his  ark  of  deliverance 
has  brought  more  than  a  hundred  fugitive  slaves,  and 
set  their  feet  safely  down  on  free  soil.  I  have  seen 
some  of  his  passengers,  newly  landed,  and  the  grati- 
tude which  they  expressed  for  him  was  such  as  you 
might  expect  from  a  soul  that  had  stood  on  the  edge 
of  the  imaginary  Calvinistic  pit,  and  had  thence  been 
snatched  away,  and  carried  to  a  place  in  the  kingdom 
of  heaven.  It  is  not  so  hard  a  thing  to  front  a  cannon 
in  battle  as  to  go  into  the  Southern  States,  month  after 
month,  and  year  after  year,  and  take  men  out  from 
the  fetters  of  bondage,  and  set  them  down  in  a  large, 
free  place,  fronting  the  ghastly  gallows  of  the  South, 
its  prison,  and  its  certainty  of  injustice  and  wrong. 

You  see  a  memorial  of  this  kind  of  generosity  in 
yonder  tall  finger   of  stone  on   Bunker   Hill,   which 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    165 

points  up  to  God's  higher  law,  in  deference  to  which 
the  men  whom  the  monument  commemorates  laid  down 
their  lives  on  that  venerable  spot.  Perhaps  you  have 
more  reverence  for  fighting  than  I,  perhaps  less ;  at 
any  rate  we  can  honor  what  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the 
fighting  and  is  ready  for  other  generous  and  heroic 
action, —  the  stern  consciousness  of  duty,  and  willing- 
ness to  postpone  self  that  right  may  go  forward  and 
humanity  triumph. 

Look  now  at  generosity  of  a  nobler  kind,  at  gener- 
osity of  character.  In  its  highest  and  most  difficult 
forms  of  manifestation,  it  devotes  its  mind  and  con- 
science and  heart  and  soul  to  noble  works.  There  are 
men  who  have  no  money  to  offer,  more  than  Simon 
Peter  had  of  silver  and  gold,  who  are  never  called  on 
to  face  peril,  nor  have  the  power  to  make  the  lame  man 
walk  and  praise  God ;  who  3^et  have  other  things  to 
endure  which  make  the  soldier's  heroism  seem  poor  and 
cheap.  How  many  examples  do  we  see  of  this  gener- 
osity, which  is  not  condensed  into  a  few  acts,  a  water- 
spout of  benevolence,  but  diffused  over  a  man's  life,  an 
evening  dew,  generously  coming  down  in  meadows 
newly  mown,  with  noiseless  foot,  cheering  the  weary 
and  heated  plants,  bowed  together,  and  in  no  wise  able 
to  lift  themselves  up ! 

Some  years  ago  I  knew  an  old  man  in  Boston,  not 
rich  in  money,  but  whose  life  ran  over  with  continual 
good  deeds.  He  begged  other  men's  bread  for  the 
needy,  this  great  mediator  between  dollars  on  the  one 
side  and  want  on  the  other,  and  gave  it  to  the  poor, 
with  the  benediction  which  made  it  SAveeter  than  storied 
manna  to  the  Hebrews,  faint  and  ready  to  perish.  His 
presence  with  the  afflicted  was  a  sovereign  balm  that 
soothed  the  smart  of  agony,  and  made  glad  the  faint 
heart.     His  arms  were  folded  round  many  an  orphan. 


166      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

"  Beside  the  bed  where  parting  life  was  laid, 
And  sorrow,  guilt,  and  pain,  by  turns  dismayed, 
The  generous  champion  stood:  at  his  control 
Despair  and  anguish  fled  the  struggling  soul; 
Comfort  came  down  the  trembling  wretch  to  raise, 
And  his  last  faltering  accents  whispered  praise." 

Like  the  providence  of  God,  he  mixed  beauty  with 
benevolence,  and,  begging  from  rich  men's  gardens, 
carried  flowers  to  many  a  sick  girl  or  failing  woman, 
that  the  eyes  soon  to  be  shut  on  earth  might  at  their 
close  look  on  some  beautiful  blossom,  which  like  that 
other  star  of  Bethlehem  should  go  before  her,  and  at 
length  stand  still  before  the  spot  where  angels  were 
gathered  to  receive  her  spirit  newly-born. 

Here  is  a  woman  whose  generosity  is  public,  which 
looks  into  the  jails  of  America,  and  teases  half  the 
legislatures  to  give  the  lunatic  a  home.  Nor  do  I 
honor  less  another,  whose  generosity  of  soul  runs  over 
continually  with  rarest  Christian  beauty,  and  gilds  the 
outside  of  the  cup,  which  to  hundreds  of  orphan  babies 
is  their  cup  of  life,  and  also  of  blessedness ;  nor  less  two 
women  more,  whose  ever-living  humanity  seems  almost 
as  generous  as  their  God's,  with  uncompromising  self- 
denial  devoted  to  those  deeds  which  themselves  requite, 
and  while  they  are  a  blessing  to  whoso  takes,  are  also 
a  beatitude  of  immortal  life  to  such  as  do.  But  of 
these  and  other  such  let  me  speak  softly,  for  their 
right  hand  would  tremble  if  the  left  hand  overheard  it 
at  its  work.  Time  would  fail  me  should  I  presume  to 
tell  of  a  tithe  of  examples  of  this  kind  of  generosity 
which  every  year,  every  month,  makes  known  to  me. 
I  cannot  count  the  apple-blossoms  for  the  coming 
month ;  so  in  silence  let  their  beauty  exhale  to  heaven, 
while  the  sweetness  half  turns  and  transfigures  itself  to 
fruit  for  times  to  come. 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  167 

Here  is  a  man  in  a  sister  city,  of  fine  powers  and 
scholarly  attainments,  a  most  intense  love  of  literature 
as  art  and  profession,  who  devotes  his  toilsome  days  to 
the  friendless  children  of  the  streets ;  and  the  powers 
which  he  might  convert  to  fame  and  riches  for  himself, 
he  turns  into  humanity,  and  therewith  transfigures  to 
virtuous  men  and  women  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the 
vulgar  streets  of  New  York,  who  would  else  choke  the 
jails,  and  perish  by  the  vengeance  of  the  public  law. 
How  much  higher  generosity  is  this  than  the  mere  giv- 
ing of  alms !  Why,  it  is  the  pelican  feeding  not  her 
own  young,  but  another's  young  from  her  own  bosom. 

Not  many  years  ago  the  schools  of  Massachusetts 
were  quite  incompetent  to  their  great  work  of  the  pub- 
lic education  of  the  people,  and  one  of  Massachusetts' 
noblest  and  ablest  sons,  on  the  high  road  to  honor  and 
to  wealth,  a  politician  and  a  lawyer,  president  of  the 
Massachusetts  Senate,  gave  up  his  chance  of  riches, 
renounced  the  road  to  public  fame,  and  became  school- 
master-general to  all  the  children  of  the  State.  His 
labor  was  double  his  former  work,  his  pay  not  half  his 
customary  fee,  and  of  honor  he  had  none  at  all ;  but 
mean  ministers,  mean  schoolmasters,  mean  editors,  made 
mouths  at  the  first  superintendent  of  our  common 
schools,  and  that  was  his  immediate  reward ;  nay,  when 
he  modestly  asked  of  the  legislature  a  little  room  in 
the  State  House,  with  proud  disdain  the  Democrats 
turned  their  backs  on  him,  and  said  he  should  not  have 
it;  na3%  when  the  politicians  of  the  State  grew  stingy, 
and  doled  out  not  quite  enough  to  build  a  Normal 
school-house,  and  not  another  cent  could  be  pinched 
from  them,  our  poor,  generous  lawyer  sold  his  books 
to  build  the  school-house  for  the  wealthy  State,  in  that 
neglected  cause  spending  and  being  spent,  though  at 


168      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

that  time  the  more  he  loved  Massachusetts  the  less  he 
was  loved  in  return.  Now  in  another  State  he  toils  for 
a  college  where  he  receives  no  pay,  supporting  his  fam- 
ily by  bread  earned  by  toil  elsewhere,  lecturing  over  all 
the  land  in  the  winter,  that  the  rest  of  the  year  he  may 
teach  the  children  of  Ohio  in  a  college  which  as  yet 
can  only  afford  to  give  him  his  house  and  firewood. 
In  due  time  Massachusetts  woke  up  from  her  sleep, 
when  it  was  a  little  too  late,  and  turned  round  and  gen- 
erously honored  the  generous  man. 

Here  is  a  man  in  a  New  England  town  whose  life  for 
many  a  year  has  been  one  act  of  continual  generosity. 
His  purse  has  been  only  too  open  to  every  noble  char- 
ity. He  is  one  of  the  many  benevolent  men  I  know, 
whose  benevolence  I  never  ask  for  any  one,  because 
the  hand  is  more  ready  to  give  than  to  take  the  new 
or  get  the  old ;  but  he  is  also  one  of  the  few  to  whom 
I  say,  "  You  give  too  much !  It  is  more  than  you  owe 
in  justice,  or  even  in  charity.  Hold  back  a  little,  good 
sir,  this  time."  The  door  of  his  hospitality  seems 
never  shut ;  his  elastic  walls  are  an  alms-basket  to  many 
an  African  for  whom  Boston  men  are  hunting  with 
the  dog  of  the  law.  Therein  the  Ethiopian  has  changed 
his  skin.  Theological  faith  which  can  remove  moun- 
tains,—  what  is  it  to  these  works,  which  can  transfigure 
an  African  slave  into  a  self-respectful  man,  and  that 
with  no  miracle  but  charity?  Poor  forsaken  men, 
hated  and  evil-entreated  of  the  world,  find  there  a  shel- 
ter, and  the  cause  which  he  knew  not  he  searched  out. 
Others  went  amongst  the  sound,  seeking  their  ease  and 
comfort ;  this  good  physician  was  found  among  the 
sick,  the  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners.  Was  the 
cause  of  humanity  unpopular,  because  too  high  for 
popular  comprehension?     White  men  of  superior  edu- 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    169 

cation,  and  a  social  respectability  which  might  over- 
awe the  public  into  reverence  for  the  rare  virtue  they 
had  not  grown  up  to,  and  could  not  therefore  compre- 
hend, shrunk  off,  and  even  threw  stones  at  such  Sa- 
maritans as  lifted  up  men  fallen  among  thieves ;  —  he 
went  forward  manfully,  and  with  open  face  endured  the 
public  shame  which  waits  on  all  who  will  be  wise  before 
their  time,  and  go  above  it.  With  spiritual  hospitality 
more  generous  than  his  material  welcome,  he  looked 
for  those  ideas  which  are  the  forerunners  of  a  better 
time,  and  was  not  forgetful  of  such  strangers,  and  so 
fed  angels  at  his  board,  not  always  unawares.  When 
all  New  England  trembled  before  the  devil,  he  wel- 
comed universal  salvation.  He  only  judged  of  God's 
mercy  by  his  own.  When  woman  was  counted  inferior, 
flattered  by  fops  and  evil-entreated  by  the  law,  he 
remembered  his  mother  was  as  dear  to  him  as  his  father, 
had  equal  rights  with  him,  and  he  sought  to  secure 
equal  rights  for  all  womankind.  When  the  advocates 
of  a  dark  theology  sought  to  block  the  wheels  of 
progress  in  front,  to  silence  the  freedom  of  speech,  and 
put  the  chains  of  ecclesiastical  bondage  all  round  New 
England  pulpits,  and  with  a  thread  of  Spanish  iron  to 
sew  up  the  mouths  of  young  Protestants  in  the  nine- 
teenth •  century,  he  also  resisted  that  wickedness,  and 
took  part  for  justice,  truth,  and  mercy,  the  more  openly 
and  strongly  because  the  world  made  righteousness  a 
reproach,  and  blackened  Christianity  with  the  name  of 
infidelity.  There  was  generosity  far  superior  to  that 
which  lays  down  its  life  on  the  battle-field.  It  is  easy 
to  be  generous  with  money,  so  long  as  you  only  give  the 
crumbs  which  fall  from  your  table ;  nay,  it  is  not  hard 
to  bestow  public  alms  or  public  charities  with  some 
little  self-denial,  when  you  thereby  win  the  praise  of 


170      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

the  churches,  which  now  pay  honor  to  this  form  of 
charity,  and  never  fail  to  do  so, —  God  be  thanked  for 
that !  Nay,  when  want  stares  you  in  the  face,  it  is  not 
easy  for  one  bred  on  the  Bible  to  say  to  the  poor  man, 
"  Depart,  and  be  ye  warmed  and  fed  and  clad !  "  and 
never  give  any  thing.  There  is  none  of  us  into  whose 
consciousness  St.  James's  Christian  rebuke  would  not 
spring  at  once,  when  he  needlessly  turned  thus  off. 
But  to  practise  self-denial  of  money,  ease,  honor,  quiet, 
and  do  it  continually,  year  out  and  year  in,  and  never 
be  weary,  and  to  do  this  for  a  despised  cause,  to  be 
despised  on  account  of  it, —  why,  such  generosity  as 
that  is  only  to  be  expected  from  a  man  in  his  babyhood 
nobly  born,  and  who  has  elevated  his  noble  birth  to 
lofty  heights  by  a  continual  practice  of  religious  self- 
denial  and  faith  in  the  dear  God. 

Here  is  a  man  in  Boston,  born  to  what  most  men 
covet  most,  namely,  a  competency  of  money  and  that 
social  standing  which  comes  of  an  estate  some  gener- 
ations old,  well  gifted  with  the  power  to  know,  and  the 
wondrous  power  to  tell,  till  others  think  they  knew  it 
all  before,  blessed  with  a  culture  to  correspond,  a  man 
fitted  to  be  an  ornament  to  the  society  of  this  town, 
and  to  shine  in  the  official  honors  of  the  State.  At  an 
early  day  this  man  espoused  the  cause  of  men  despised 
of  all  mankind;  his  purse  was  open  to  the  slave  and 
all  that  were  oppressed,  and  his  eloquent  voice  came 
pleading  with  America,  "  Why  will  you  do  such  wicked- 
ness,—  the  meanest  form  of  wrong.''" — "0  brother 
men ! "  he  cries,  "  your  constitution  is  a  covenant  with 
death,  an  agreement  with  hell.  It  must  not  stand,  it 
cannot  stand,  it  shall  not  stand !  Away  with  it ! 
Learn  to  love  mercy,  and  do  justly,  and  walk  humbly 
with  your  God."     Did  he  not  know  that  office,  honor. 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  171 

social  respect,  would  all  flee  from  him,  and  he  be 
counted  as  the  ofFscouring  of  the  world?  It  was  as 
plain  to  him  twenty  years  ago  as  now.  He  made  him- 
self of  no  account  that  he  might  serve  man,  yes,  God. 
Can  you  appreciate  this  generosity?  Then  you  are 
wiser  than  your  town,  more  Christian  than  that  Church 
miscalled  of  Christ. 

I  have  sometimes  complained  of  the  superior  educa- 
tion of  America,  that  it  is  almost  exclusively  of  the 
intellect,  and  not  of  the  higher  spiritual  faculties. 
Surely  our  scholars  have  cut  themselves  off  from  the 
instinct  of  humanity.  A  thousand  men  college-bred 
will  have  less  justice,  love,  and  piety  than  a  thousand 
farmers  from  the  fields,  or  mechanics  from  the  shops. 
But  among  the  scholarly  men  of  the  land,  there  is  one 
above  the  rest,  great  in  generosity  as  well  as  in  exquisite 
genius,  wherein  he  excels  all  the  children  America  has 
borne  in  her  bosom.  In  his  place  as  minister,  lecturer, 
writer,  he  never  said  a  mean  thing;  but  as  the  apple 
or  feather  or  falling  meteor  drops  to  the  center  of  the 
world,  so  by  his  own  generous  instinct,  the  greatness  of 
his  humanity,  does  he  gravitate  towards  the  noblest  and 
fairest  things.  Where  justice  is,  where  truth,  love, 
religion  are  gathered  together,  there  is  he  in  their 
company'',  this  highest,  brightest,  fairest  star  in  all 
America's  literary  heaven.  While  other  scholars  pale 
away,  this  man,  full  of  generosity,  still  keeps  his  eye 
undimmed,  and  his  voice,  like  a  trumpet,  calls  to  the 
people,  "  Come  up  higher !     Come  up  higher !  " 

As  I  spoke  of  the  mean  minister,  I  must  also  say  a 
word  of  a  generous  one.  In  another  city  there  is  a  son 
of  Boston,  also  of  our  venerable  college  not  far  off^,  who 
is  a  minister  of  righteousness ;  not  a  worshiper  of  the 
fictitious  Christ  of  the  Church,  but  an  admirer  of  the 


172      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

real  Jesus,  who  brightened  the  world  with  his  flowery 
presence.  He  is  a  friend  of  contemplative  Marys,  and 
of  Marthas  also,  careful  and  troubled  about  much  serv- 
ing. He  is  the  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners,  of 
Lazarus  laid  at  the  rich  man's  gate,  and  of  Dives,  at 
whose  porch  the  unheeded  beggar  lay ;  full  of  devout- 
ness,  which  is  partly  personal  and  partly  inherited,  but 
also  the  freest  of  men.  Thoughtful  for  himself,  he 
asks  of  others  to  think  for  themselves,  notwithstanding 
he  is  a  minister,  and  never  ventures  to  put  his  mind  in 
place  of  theirs,  and  usurp  authority  in  the  heart  of 
those  who  listen  to  his  words.  All  the  humanities  con- 
gregate in  his  house,  and  are  there  at  home.  He  is  the 
champion  of  temperance,  peace,  education,  and  is  also 
the  great  advocate,  and  one  of  the  earliest,  for  the 
American  woman  and  the  African  slave.  He  has  so 
much  nobleness  that  few  of  his  ministerial  brothers 
have  humanity  enough  to  understand  him,  and  so  they 
revile  this  man,  and  cast  out  his  name  as  evil,  and  he 
bears  it  all  with  that  same  magnanimity  of  soul  which 
the  good  mother  shows  to  the  wickedness  of  every  little 
feeble-bodied  baby  when  it  is  nervous  and  sick.  Pious 
without  bigotry  or  narrowness,  moral  without  austerity, 
earnest  always,  but  never  harsh,  strict  to  himself,  in- 
dulgent to  a  friend,  and  lenient  to  a  foe, —  his  face 
gleams,  like  that  of  Moses  in  the  story,  with  the  manly 
generosity  of  his  heart,  and  it  is  a  benediction  in  the 
church  where  he  statedly  preaches,  and  has  been  some- 
times also  a  benediction  to  you,  when  with  that  evan- 
gelical sweetness  he  has  stood  before  you,  and  preached 
peace  and  righteousness,  and  judgment  to  come.  In 
the  meeting-house  he  is  beautiful,  and  in  his  home,  with 
his  wife  and  children,  his  presence  is  a  beatitude  done 
into  flesh  and  blood.     When  I  meet  the  good  minister, 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  173 

I  thank  God,  and  take  courage,  and  say,  "  Whatever 
Jesus  would  have  thought  of  your  opinions,  I  am  sure 
he  would  have  sat  down  by  your  side  and  put  his  arms 
around  you,  and  said  '  my  brother ! '  " 

There  is  one  form  of  spiritual  generosity  not  com- 
mon, and  perhaps  not  commonlj^  praised,  and  that  is 
forgiveness  of  injuries,  to  feel  no  enmity  to  your 
enemy,  to  bless  them  that  curse  you,  to  do  good  to 
such  as  hate  you,  and  pray  for  them  who  despitefully 
use  you  and  persecute  you.  That  is  the  severest  test 
of  the  highest  generosity,  and  of  all  the  crosses  Jesus 
called  on  his  disciples  to  take,  there  was  none  so  heavy 
to  be  borne  as  this.  Who  is  there  that  is  generous 
enough  to  be  just  to  a  foe.^*  How  rarely  do  we  find 
virtue  in  a  man  who  opposes  our  sect,  our  party ;  or  if 
one  crosses  our  private  path  even,  how  commonly  do 
we  pay  him  back  with  the  meanest  hatred  and  con- 
tempt. Now  generosity  does  not  require  that  we 
should  think  black  white,  nor  vice  virtue,  nor  that  we 
should  consider  any  of  the  present  attempts  against 
personal  liberty  any  thing  less  than  the  open  wicked- 
ness which  they  appear  on  their  face ;  but  whatsoever 
judgment  conscience  requires  against  the  wrong  deed, 
it  demands  also  love,  a  sense  of  kindliness  to  the  most 
evil  and  most  malignant  doers  of  the  wicked  deed.  I 
can  find  some  examples  of  this  highest  generosity,  now 
with  men,  oftener  with  women,  perhaps ;  and  in  com- 
parison with  this  sweet  virtue  of  forgiveness,  how  mean 
seems  all  the  vengeance  in  the  world !  To  be  able  to 
hold  vour  hands,  and  look  on  the  man  who  has  wronged 
you  bitterly,  and  say,  "  My  brother,  the  deed  was  of  the 
devil,  the  doer  I  forgive,  and  here  is  my  brotherly 
hand," —  in  comparison  with  that,  envy,  hate,  revenge, 
triumph  over  a  foe,  seem  like  those  little  worms  which 


174.   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

crawl  in  the  mire  where  an  elephant  walks  over  them, 
with  his  imperial  and  majestic  tread. 

From  antiquity  there  have  come  down  to  us  the  ven- 
erable names  of  great  men,  heroes  of  the  flesh,  also  of 
the  thoughtful  intellect.  I  bow  before  their  lofty 
memories,  and  the  reverence  does  me  good.  Men  of 
generous  blood  and  noble  deeds  were  they.  But 
amongst  them,  and  yet  something  apart,  as  if  of  nicer 
and  more  feminine  mind,  there  stands  one  whom  God 
gifted  with  most  wondrous  genius  for  religion,  and  all 
the  dear  humanities.  He  dared  to  make  a  generous 
use  of  what  the  Father  generously  gave,  and  stepped 
in  front  of  the  world  so  far,  that  when  the  world  could 
not  comprehend  him,  nor  even  tolerate,  but  nailed  him 
to  the  cross  between  two  thieves,  he  bowed  his  head 
and  said,  "  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not 
what  they  do."  I  honor  the  generosity  of  money,  the 
generosity  of  the  flesh ;  but  the  highest  generosity,  gen- 
erosity kept  still  in  death,  which  breathes  its  life  away 
in  a  beatitude  for  its  murderers, —  why,  it  transfigures 
humanity  out  from  its  lowl}^  w^eeds,  and  discloses  that 
nature  a  little  lower  than  the  angels,  the  very  image 
and  likeness  of  God. 

Do  not  suppose  that  a  great,  generous  man  will  fare 
so  well  in  the  newspapers,  in  the  streets,  with  the  priests 
of  commerce,  as  a  mean  man  will.  He  will  fare  well  in 
his  own  character,  and  have  the  sympathy  of  our  Father 
and  Mother  in  heaven, —  recompense  from  God.  A 
really  generous  man  will  have  patience  with  mankind, 
will  continually  see  meanness  preferred  and  generosity 
despised ;  for  his  greatness  of  gift  was  not  given  him, 
nor  his  greatness  of  achievement  attained,  for  his  own 
sake,  but  mankind's  also.  So  he  asks  no  pay  for  gen- 
erosity, spending  and  spent  for  others,  though  the  more 
he  loves  them  the  less  he  be  loved  of  them. 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    175 

Men  talk  as  if  there  were  not  much  generosity  in 
mankind,  and  for  proof  they  point  to  the  fate  of  the 
highest  greatness  of  virtue  on  earth,  and  to  Humihty, 
who  walks  barefoot,  bearing  another's  burdens 
through  the  street,  and  is  splashed  by  the  mud  in  the 
garments  and  in  the  face,  by  the  coach  and  six  where 
Pride  flaunts  by,  while  the  crowd  hurrah  for  the  coach 
and  six  and  the  gilded  worm  that  sits  therein. 
"  Look,"  says  the  unbeliever  in  generosity,  "  at  Moses 
fleeing  from  Egypt,  at  the  treachery  of  his  country- 
men ;  at  the  prophets  slain  and  sawn  asunder ;  at  John 
the  Baptist,  his  head  in  a  dish ;  at  Jesus  crucified  be- 
tween two  thieves ;  at  Mahomet  forced  by  those  whom 
he  would  uplift  and  bless  to  flee  at  night  from  Mecca 
on  a  yellow  camel,  snatching  hastily  a  cruse  of  water 
and  a  bag  of  barley ;  at  Arnaldo  da  Brescia  burned 
by  the  pope,  and  his  ashes  scattered  in  the  Tiber;  at 
John  Huss  and  Jerome,  burned  alive  by  the  great  men 
of  their  times ;  at  the  reformers  of  our  time.  The  State 
hates  him  who  would  mend  the  State ;  whoso  would  bless 
the  Church  with  more  piety,  the  Church  bans  with  its 
curse  and  remands  to  its  hell.  Look  at  Boston  at  this 
day,  where  it  is  thought  respectable  to  tread  personal 
liberty  down  underneath  the  hoof  of  the  vulgarest  of 
office-holders.  Where  then  is  the  generosity  amongst 
men?     It  is  only  exceptional,  here  and  there  a  little !  " 

I  see  how  mean  and  selfish  Napoleon  the  Great  was 
treated  in  his  lifetime,  and  how  in  his  noblest  days  gen- 
erous Washington  was  met,  a  price  set  on  his  head  by 
his  king,  and  every  Tory  who  hated  personal  liberty, 
from  1776  to  1787,  threw  stones  at  him.  But  this  does 
not  discourage  me.  I  look  at  these  examples,  and  in 
their  completed  history  do  I  see  the  generosity  of  man- 
kind.    The  cry  of  Israel  reached  the  ears  of  Moses ; 


176      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

their  treachery  had  exiled  him ;  he  goes  down  to  Egypt, 
and  the  Red  Sea  opens  before  his  banners,  he  finds  bread 
in  the  desert,  water  in  the  rocks,  and  ere  long  is  not 
only  the  nation's  king  and  lawgiver,  but  the  nation's 
god.  The  words  of  the  prophets,  too  true  in  their 
time  for  the  popular  belief,  have  become  the  Holy 
Scriptures  of  the  Jew.  John  the  Baptist  lays  his  head 
under  a  dancing  harlot's  sword,  but  he  bequeaths  his 
memory,  with  sturdy  faithfulness  and  love,  to  the  keep- 
ing of  mankind.  The  apostles  of  whom  the  world 
seemed  not  worthy,  the  world  turns  and  worships.  The 
name  of  Arnaldo  da  Brescia  becomes  a  fire  all  over 
the  Catholic  country.  John  Huss  and  Bohemian 
Jerome  are  honored  by  the  world,  while  it  despises  the 
pope  who  slew  them.  See  what  welcome  America  gives 
to  her  hero  now ;  even  mean  men,  Tories,  make  capital 
out  of  the  nation's  reverence  for  him.  Listen  to  the 
world's  judgment  of  Napoleon  the  Great:  — "  Let  him 
stand  there,  a  colossus  of  bronze  on  his  column  in  the 
Place  Vendome,  a  thousand  cannons  high,  starred  all 
over  with  his  victories,  glittering  with  the  twofold  light 
of  military  and  political  genius."  That  tall  column, 
a  thousand  cannons  high,  is  only  the  gallows  on  which 
he  gibbets  his  mean  selfishness  to  the  lasting  gaze  and 
Indignation  of  mankind.  The  Mahomet  whom  Mecca 
was  not  able  to  honor,  is  worshiped  as  the  great  legis- 
lator of  millions  of  men.  Jesus  crucified  between  two 
thieves, —  two  hundred  and  sixty  millions  bow  their 
faces  down  before  him,  of  whom  those  seemingly  the 
least  reverent  call  him  the  greatest  and  the  noblest  of 
men,  in  whom  humanity  rose  highest. 

Everywhere  you  find  more  generosity  than  meanness. 
Open  your  eyes  in  any  little  town,  and  see  how  many 
generous  men,  and  yet  more  generous  women,  there  are. 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  177 

I  know  persons,  young  and  old,  who  continually  post- 
pone their  own  delight  for  the  sake  of  generous  deeds ; 
their  own  vineyards  they  keep  not,  that  others'  they 
may  tend.  It  is  by  such  generous  souls  that  the  world 
moves  on.  Selfishness  smokes  his  cigar,  drinks  his 
voluptuous  wine,  is  clad  in  purple  and  fine  linen,  is 
welcome  to  many  a  gay  saloon ;  while  Nobleness  is 
austere  to  his  body,  and  pinches  and  spares  for  lofty 
ends,  and  into  his  house  come  all  the  virtues,  and  bless- 
ings in  their  train. 

O  young  man !  O  young  woman !  It  may  be  you 
cannot  practise  the  generosity  of  the  dollar;  you  may 
not  have  it,  though  most  have  this  power  to  some  extent. 
If  you  are  rich,  by  all  means  lay  largely  out  here,  re- 
membering that  what  is  generously  spent  in  this  way 
for  another,  God  pays  back  to  you  in  good  you  never 
asked  nor  thought.  God  is  your  debtor.  He  is  never 
bankrupt ;  he  pays  not  merely  cent  for  cent,  but  mani- 
fold. Practise,  by  all  means,  generosity  of  the  body, 
which  is  in  the  power  of  all ;  and  likewise  generosity  of 
the  soul,  which  is  spread  over  the  whole  life;  in  every 
department  of  human  action  there  is  daily  opportunity 
for  the  exhibition  of  that.  Let  us  abhor  the  vice  of 
meanness ;  let  us  practise  generosity,  not  profligately, 
but  in  a  manly  and  womanly  fashion,  at  any  rate  with 
human  nobleness.  It  is  a  religious  duty ;  for  God  has 
been  generous  towards  us,  in  the  nature  in  which  He 
has  created  us,  in  the  world  He  has  given  us,  in  the 
flowers  that  adorn  its  ground,  in  the  stars  that  spangle 
its  sky.  He  has  sent  us  that  prince  of  generosity,  the 
dear  Jesus,  who  used  his  noble  gifts  never  with  mean- 
ness, always  with  generosity,  setting  us  an  example  how 
we  also  ought  to  do. 

XI— 12 


178   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

CHRISTIANITY  AND  CHRISTIAN  FORMALITY 

When  you  see  old  Mr.  Goodness,  an  unpretending 
man,  honest,  industrious,  open-hearted,  pure  in  his  hfe, 
full  of  justice  and  mercy  and  kind  deeds,  you  say, 
"  That  man  is  a  Christian,  if  anybody  is."  You  do  not 
ask  what  he  thinks  about  Jonah  and  the  whale,  about 
the  beast  with  seven  heads  and  ten  horns,  the  plagues  of 
Egypt,  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  the  nature  of 
Christ,  or  the  miraculous  atonement.  You  see  that 
man's  religion  in  the  form  of  manly  life ;  you  ask  no 
further  proof,  and  no  other  proof  is  possible.  When 
you  say  you  wish  Christianity  could  get  preached  and 
practised  all  round  the  world,  thereby  you  do  not  mean 
the  Christianity  of  Dr.  Beecher,  of  Dr.  Wayland,  of 
Calvin  or  Luther ;  you  mean  that  religion  which  is  nat- 
ural to  the  heart  of  man,  the  ideal  piety  and  morality 
which  mankind  aims  at.  But  when  the  Rev.  Dr.  Ban- 
baby  speaks  of  Brother  Zerubbabel  Zealous  as  a  great 
Christian,  he  means  no  such  thing.  He  means  that 
Zerubbabel  has  been  baptized, —  sprinkled  or  dipped, — 
that  he  believes  in  the  Trinity,  in  the  infallible  inspira- 
tion of  every  word  In  the  Bible,  in  the  miracles,  no 
matter  how  ridiculous  or  unattested ;  that  he  believes 
in  the  total  depravity  of  human  nature,  in  the  atone- 
ment, in  the  omnipresence  of  a  personal  devil,  going 
about  as  a  roaring  lion,  seeking  whom  he  may  devour, 
and  eternally  champing  In  his  insatiate  maw  nine  hun- 
dred and  ninety-nine  out  of  every  thousand,  while  God, 
and  Christ,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  can  only  succeed  In 
saving  one  out  of  a  thousand  —  perhaps  one  out  of  a 
million.  Banbaby  reckons  him  a  Christian  because  he 
has  been  "  bom  again,"  "  put  off  the  natural  man," — 
that  is,  made  away  with  his  common  sense  and  common 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  179 

humanity  so  far  as  to  believe  these  absurd  things, — 
draws  down  the  corners  of  his  mouth,  attends  theologi- 
cal meetings,  makes,  long  prayers  in  words,  reads  the 
books  of  his  sect,  gives  money  for  ecclesiastical  objects, 
and  pays  attention  to  ecclesiastical  forms.  He  does  not 
think  old  Mr.  Goodness's  long  life  of  industry,  tem- 
perance, charity,  patriotism,  justice,  brotherly  love, 
profits  him  at  all.  He  is  only  an  unregenerate,  im- 
penitant  man,  who  trusts  in  his  own  righteousness, 
leans  on  an  arm  of  flesh,  has  been  bom  but  once,  and 
will  certainly  perish  everlastingly.  It  is  of  no  sort 
of  consequence  that  Zerubbabel  is  a  sharper,  has  ships 
in  the  cooly-trade,  and  is  building  swift  clippers  down 
in  Maine  to  engage  in  the  African  slave-trade,  as  soon 
as  the  American  Government  closes  that  little  corner 
of  its  left  eye  which  it  still  keeps  open  to  look  after 
that.  Old  Mr.  Goodness's  "  righteousness "  is  re- 
garded "  as  filthy  rags,"  while  Zerubbabel's  long  face 
and  long  prayers  are  held  to  be  a  ticket  entitling  him 
to  the  very  highest  seat  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
At  the  Monthly  Concert  for  Foreign  Missions  the  Rev. 
Dr.  leads  in  prayer,  and  Brother  Zerubbabel  follows. 
Both  ask  the  same  thing, —  the  Christianization  of 
heathen  lands.  But  they  do  not  mean  that  form  of  the 
Christian  religion  which  is  piety  in  the  heart  and 
morality  in  the  outer  life.  They  mean  compliance 
with  the  popular  theology,  not  the  Christian  religion 
proclaimed  in  those  grand  words,  "  Thou  shalt  love 
the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy 
soul,  and  with  all  thy  strength,  and  with  all  thy  mind, 
and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  and  illustrated  by  a  life 
as  grand  as  the  words.  They  mean  the  Christian 
formality,  as  set  forth  in  the  little  creed,  and  illus- 
trated by  the  lesser  conduct,  of  a  very  mean,  bigoted, 
and  yet  earnest  and  self-denying  sect. 


180      THE  WORLD  OF  IVIATTER  AND  MAN 

Be  not  familiar  with  the  idea  of  wrong,  for  sin  in 
fancy  mothers  many  an  ugly  fact. 

GREATNESS  AND  GOODNESS 

Take  goodness,  with  the  average  intellectual  power, 
and  compare  it  with  mere  greatness  of  intellect  and  so- 
cial standing,  and  it  is  far  the  nobler  quality ;  and  if 
God  should  offer  me  one  of  them,  I  would  not  hesitate 
which  to  choose.  No,  the  greatest  intellect  which  God 
ever  bestowed  I  would  not  touch,  if  I  were  bid  to 
choose  between  that  and  the  goodness  of  an  average 
woman;  I  would  scorn  it,  and  say.  Give  it  to  Lucifer, 
give  me  the  better  gift.  When  I  say  goodness  is 
greater  than  greatness,  I  mean  to  say  it  gives  a  deeper 
and  serener  joy  in  the  private  heart,  joins  men  more 
tenderly  to  one  another  and  more  earnestly  to  God.  I 
honor  intellect,  reason,  and  understanding ;  I  wish  we 
took  ten  times  more  pains  to  cultivate  them  than  we 
do.  I  honor  greatness  of  mind, —  great  reason,  which 
intuitively  sees  truths,  great  laws,  and  the  like ;  great 
understanding,  which  learns  special  laws,  and  works 
in  details  ;  • —  the  understanding  that  masters  things 
for  use  and  beauty,  that  can  marshal  millions  of  men 
into  an  organization  that  shall  last  for  centuries.  I 
once  coveted  such  power,  and  am  not  wholly  free  from 
the  madness  of  it  yet.  I  see  its  use.  I  hope  I  am 
not  ignorant  of  the  joys  of  science  of  letters;  I  am 
not  of  the  pursuit  of  these.  I  bow  reverently  before 
the  men  of  genius,  and  sit  gladly  at  their  feet.  But 
the  man  who  sees  justice  and  does  it,  who  knows  love 
and  lives  it,  who  has  a  great  faith  and  trust  in  God, — 
let  him  have  a  mind  quite  Inferior,  and  a  culture  quite 
little, —  I  must  yet  honor  and  reverence  that  man  far 
more  than  he  who  has  the  greatest  power  of  intellects 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    181 

I  know  that  knowledge  is  power,  and  reverence  it; 
but  justice  is  higher  power,  and  love  is  a  manlier  power, 
and  religion  is  a  diviner  power;  each  greater  than  the 
mightiest  mind. 

THE  IDEAL  AND  THE  ACTU^iE  OF  MANLY  CHAR- 
ACTER 

To  rest  in  mere  thought  is  not  satisfactory.  So  the 
natural  man  longs  to  put  his  thought  into  a  thing. 
Action  must  complete  it.  What  runs  in  his  head  must 
forth  to  run  in  the  mill.  No  artist  is  contented  with 
thinking  a  handsome  figure ;  what  is  in  him  must  out, 
a  statue  or  a  picture.     This  faculty  is  in  us  all. 

Now  there  is  one  great  feeling  in  us,  namely,  the 
desire  for  a  perfect,  manly  character.  It  may  be  a 
dim  feeling,  but  there  it  is, —  the  instinctive  and  spon- 
taneous desire  to  be  and  to  do  all  that  nature  demands, 
the  most  that  we  can  be  or  do.  In  the  human  race  the 
instinct  of  progress  drives  men  ever  forward,  ever 
upward ;  for  though  you  and  I  may  be  sentimental  and 
dreamy,  the  human  race  is  no  sentimentalist,  but  a 
fierce,  hard  worker.  In  the  individual  man  this  instinct 
is  the  desire  of  human  perfection.  Though  often  dim, 
now  and  then  something  stirs  us  to  form  an  ideal. 
The  picture  of  a  complete  man, —  how  fair  it  is  in  the 
young  man's  or  woman's  mind!  No  painter  or 
sculptor  could  ever  fancy  an  ideal  of  the  outward 
man  beautiful  enough  to  correspond  to  the  ideal  of  a 
manly  character  which  the  young,  earnest  heart  con- 
ceives. This  is  the  child  of  our  feeling  and  our 
thought.  Shall  it  be  only  a  thought?  Shall  this  will 
be  only  a  dream,  to  do  nothing,  to  be  nothing  when 
the  dream  is  over?  No,  it  must  also  be  a  reality  of 
character,   not   coming   at   one   spasmodic   act,   but  a 


18^   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

deed  that  comes  of  us  as  the  grass  grows  out  of  the 

ground, 

"  Or  as  the  sacred  pine-tree  adds 
To  her  old  leaves  new  myriads." 

That  is  the  end  and  expression  of  our  ideal,  that  is 
the  Hmit  of  our  deepest  feehng  and  our  highest 
thought.  If  the  feeling  be  strong,  and  the  ideal  just, 
it  is  amazing  how  much  can  be  done  in  a  small  space. 
A  very  small  stream,  if  it  start  high  enough,  will  turn 
a  great  mill,  if  the  machinery  be  made  to  suit.  How 
unpromising  a  field  for  genius  seemed  the  humble  form 
of  Scottish  song ;  but  what  a  strange  beauty  did  Bums 
put  therein !  What  a  profane  place  was  the  Globe 
Theatre  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth  and  stupid  James, 
with  its  Merry  Andrews,  its  clowns,  its  harlots,  and  its 
unspeakable  obscenity !  What  a  pulpit  was  that  out 
of  which  to  preach  manliness !  Bacon  and  Cudworth, 
the  greatest  minds  of  that  age,  never  dared  to  look 
there  to  gain  a  single  grain  of  inspiration  and  thought. 
But  out  of  that  unholy  pulpit  Shakespeare  preached 
such  manly  piety,  such  actual  humanity,  as  not  Eng- 
land, nor  Europe,  nor  the  old  classic  religion,  had  ever 
heard  before  set  forth  in  accents  so  divine.  And  if, 
with  such  accessories  for  his  art,  the  poet  could  play 
such  a  part  as  principal,  think  you  that  any  stage  is 
too  narrow  to  admit  the  entrance  of  the  noblest  char- 
acter, and  the  performance  of  the  drama  of  the  great- 
est life?  I  think  penniless  Socrates  had  not  a  very 
wide  space,  nor  Jesus  of  Nazareth  a  very  uncommon 
outlay  of  circumstances,  to  help  him  manufacture  and 
display  his  character.  Look  round  you,  and  see  what 
characters  have  been  formed  in  the  humblest  positions 
of  society,  that  have  reached  up  to  the  topmost  heaven 
of  your  thought  and  mine. 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT    183 

Men  talk  of  Christian  architecture.  I  have  seen  the 
grand  architecture  of  England,  France,  Germany, 
Italy.  I  bow  down  in  admiration  almost  at  its  rare 
beauty.  But  the  nicest  piece  of  Christian  architecture 
I  ever  saw  was  in  this  city  the  other  day.  A  man 
whose  face  shows  the  beatitudes  that  are  always  in  his 
heart,  a  grocer,  with  his  own  money  and  that  of  others 
builds  a  large  and  commodious  edifice,  parted  off  into 
reasonable  tenements  for  the  poor.  I  looked  it  over, 
and  I  said,  I  have  been  to  Strassburg  Cathedral,  I 
have  seen  Notre  Dame  and  St.  Peter's,  but  this  is 
Christian  architecture,  the  word  of  Christ  become  not 
flesh  and  blood,  but  stone  and  wood. 

If  we  have  great  thoughts  and  feelings,  we  must 
make  them  into  life  magnificently  great,  and  then 

"  Make  channels  for  the  streams  of  love 
AVhere  they  may  broadly  run, — 
And  love  has  overflowing  streams 
To  fill  them  every  one." 

THE  FOUNDATION  OF  SELF-RESPECT 

In  forming  a  manly  character,  in  endeavoring  to  at- 
tain the  true  end  of  manhood,  one  of  the  first  things  I 
would  advise  man  is  this :  Respect  your  own  nature. 
But  to  do  this,  you  must  have  things  in  you  to  respect. 

Here  is  human  nature  to  begin  with.  I  may  have 
but  little,  and  another  may  have  much,  and  a  third 
much  more.  But  it  must  be  educated  and  developed 
and  practised  upon ;  for  if  you  do  not  cultivate  your 
mind  and  other  faculties,  then,  though  you  may  respect 
your  nature,  you  cannot  trust  it,  and  you  must  accord- 
ingly be  a  pensioner  on  other  men  for  what  your  mind 
and  conscience  and  heart  and  soul  ought  to  bring,  and 
you  will  end  by  being  a  slave.     My  mind  may  be  very 


184   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

small,  and  yours  great ;  the  whole  of  my  spirit  may  be 
a  thimbleful,  and  yours  the  great  ocean-deep.  But 
if  I  am  true  to  my  own,  though  never  so  little,  I  can 
respect  myself  as  much  as  you ;  and  though  my  little 
craft  must  wait  in  the  bay,  while  your  great  argosy 
ventures  far  out  to  sea,  I  can  still  have  as  much  self- 
respect  as  you.  By  being  thus  true  to  my  faculties, 
I  get  intellectual,  moral,  affectional,  and  religious  in- 
dependence of  character.  There  is  no  real  and  lasting 
self-respect  without  this  continual  fidelity  to  your 
spirit ;  no  real  self-respect  without  that  fourfold  piety, 
the  piety  of  the  intellect,  of  the  conscience,  of  the 
affections,  and  of  the  soul.  There  can  be  no  real 
modesty  before  men  without  this ;  you  may  cringe 
and  crouch,  and  be  as  humble  as  Uriah  Heep  in  the 
story,  but  it  will  be  in  vain ;  your  modesty  will  be  a 
cheat,  your  deference  to  others  a  trick,  your  humility 
hypocrisy,  and  a  piece  of  cunning;  not  natural  sweet- 
ness and  grace  of  affection  running  over  your  soul. 
This  self-respect  is  consistent  with  the  truest  modesty. 
The  man  "  suspects  and  still  reveres  himself."  This 
respect  is  at  variance  with  vanity,  which  fills  its  shal- 
low maw  with  silly  men's  applause;  at  variance  with 
pride  and  haughtiness,  and  malignity  of  vanity ;  with 
self-conceit,  not  thinking  of  itself  more  highly  than  it 
ought ;  it  is  hostile  to  insolence ;  but  it  is  a  sister  virtue 
in  that  fair-faced  family  of  loves,  where  Faith  and 
Hope  and  Charity  together  dwell,  and  feed  their  sweet 
society  with  revelations  from  the  living  God. 

All  personal  beauty  seems  little  when  we  see  the 
virtues  of  a  man, —  only  the  shadow  of  that  divine 
substance.  The  perfect  symmetry  which  men  ascribe 
to  Jesus,  the  beauty  of  his  form  and  face, —  all  that 


CHARACTER  AND  CONDUCT  185 

fades  into  nothing  when  we  know  that  out  of  his  own 
heart  he  could  pronounce  those  beautiful  Beatitudes, 
and  with  his  dying  lips  say,  "  Father,  forgive  them." 

TO  WHAT  END  IS  OUR  LIFE 

There  is  an  end  of  mortal  life.  Then  we  gather  up 
the  things  we  have  accumulated  in  this  world,  they  are 
added  to  our  soul,  and  we  carry  them  out  of  the  world 
with  us.  Then  no  man  will  ever  be  sorry  that  in  his 
youth  he  bowed  his  forehead  to  God  in  prayer ;  no  man 
will  be  sorry  then  that  he  clasped  his  hands  in  the  in- 
stant of  his  resolution,  and  swore  that  he  would  rever- 
ence the  dreams  of  his  youth,  and  keep  undefiled  a 
conscience  in  his  heart,  and  honor  his  God  with  a  great 
life.  This  is  sacramental  and  holy.  Rejoice,  O  young 
man,  in  the  strength  of  thy  life,  and  let  thy  heart  cheer 
thee  in  the  days  of  thy  youth !  But  remember  that  for 
all  these  things  God  continually  calls  you  to  account. 
Remember  into  what  littleness  men  may  make  their 
lives  taper  off  and  vanish  away,  so  that  they  come  from 
riches  and  toils  and  honors  with  nothing  in  their  hand 
that  is  worth  gathering.  Remember  what  an  eternal 
joy  a  man  may  glean  from  a  small  field  of  life,  and  go 
home  with  the  sheaves  in  his  bosom,  and  be  welcomed 
with  a  smile  from  his  God. 

Of  old  time  Michael  Angelo  took  his  copies  from  the 
persons  in  the  street,  and  wrought  them  out  on  the 
walls  and  the  ceiling  of  the  Vatican,  changing  a  beggar 
into  a  giant,  and  an  ordinary  woman  who  bore  a  basket 
of  flowers  on  her  arm  into  an  angel ;  and  the  beggar 
and  flower-girl  stand  there  now  in  their  lustrous  beauty, 
speaking  to  eyes  that  wander  from  every  side  of 
the  green  world.  The  rock  slumbered  in  the  moun- 
tain, and  he  reached  his  hands  out  and  took  it,  and 


186   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

gathered  the  stones  from  the  fields  about  him,  and  built 
them  into  that  awful  pile,  which,  covering  acres  on  the 
ground,  reaches  up  its  mighty  dome  towards  heaven, 
constraining  the  mob  of  the  city  to  bow  their  foreheads 
and  to  vow  great  prayers  to  God.  So,  my  brothers 
and  my  sisters,  out  of  the  common  events  of  life,  out 
of  the  pasions  put  by  God  into  your  hearts,  you  may 
paint  on  the  walls  of  your  life  the  fairest  figures, 
angels  and  prophets.  Out  of  the  common  stones  of 
your  daily  work  you  may  build  yourself  a  temple  which 
shall  shelter  your  head  from  all  harm,  and  bring  down 
on  you  the  inspiration  of  God. 


IV 

PHASES  OF  DOMESTIC  LIFE 
THE  DURATION   OF  THE  FAMILY 

The  family  is  the  oldest  institution  in  the  world.  It 
was  a  long  time  before  there  was  a  king,  with  his 
throne  of  power,  or  a  priest,  with  an  altar  whereon  to 
lay  his  sacrifice.  Church  and  State  came  after  man- 
kind had  been  some  time  on  the  earth;  but  the  first 
generation  of  men  founded  a  family ;  and  the  family 
will  last  forever.  Forms  of  government  constantly 
change ;  despotism  gives  way  to  a  monarchy,  the  mon- 
archy to  a  republic,  and  the  republic  also  will  pass  by, 
and  be  succeeded  by  brighter  and  nobler  organizations 
of  wisdom,  justice  and  love.  Still  the  family  subsists, 
knowing  no  revolution,  only  a  gradual  progress  and 
elevation.  Forms  of  religion  are  as  mutable  as  the 
letters  we  write  in  the  sand  on  the  seashore;  heathen- 
ism is  gone,  Judaism  is  gone,  and  what  you  and  I  call 
Christianity,  as  a  limited  form  of  religion,  will  also 
pass  away.  But  all  of  wisdom,  justice,  love,  and  piety 
which  any  of  these  three  forms  has  ever  matured,  will 
live  forever  after  the  name  is  lost.  With  this  mutation 
and  passing  away  of  forms  of  government  and  religion, 
the  family  remains  always  so,  and  will  still  subsist. 
After  the  last  priest  has  buried  the  last  king  in  the 
ground,  after  the  last  stone  of  the  pyramids  has  been 
exhaled  to  heaven  an  invisible  vapor,  when  the  moun- 
tain that  has  fallen  has  literally  come  to  naught  and 
cannot  be  seen  to  the  eye, —  still  the  family  must  sub- 
sist, its  roots  in  the  primeval  instincts  of  the  human 
race. 

187 


188      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

HOME 

To  most  men,  home  is  the  dearest  spot  in  the  world. 
The  home  of  our  childhood,  long  after  we  become  old 
men,  is  consecrated  by  the  very  tenderest  of  memories. 
There  is  still  the  cradle  which  rocked  and  sheltered  us 
in  its  little  nest,  which  was  once  the  ark  of  a  mother's 
hope.  There  is  the  little  window  where  the  sun  came 
peeping  in  at  morning,  but  never  came  a  bit  too  soon, 
nor  staid  a  bit  too  long.  There  were  father  and 
mother, —  they  still  are  there  in  our  affection, —  the  tall 
parental  mountains  of  humanity,  so  they  seemed ;  each 
stood  at  either  end  of  our  little  Garden  of  Eden,  the 
paradise  where  we  were  born,  to  defend  us  from  the 
cold  and  bitter  blasts  of  mortal  life.  There  was  the 
father,  manly,  earnest,  toilwom,  and  industrious,  whose 
daily  sweat  purchased  for  us  a  manly  benediction  on  our 
daily  bread.  There,  too,  was  the  more  venerable  form 
of  mother,  the  dearest  name  that  mortal  lips  can  ever 
speak.  The  Turk  is  right  when  he  says  that  a  man 
may  have  many  a  sister,  many  a  wife,  but  only  one 
mother.  Doctor  Arnold,  one  of  the  ablest  and  most 
religious  Englishmen  of  the  present  age,  says  that  he 
knows  God  only  through  Christ.  I  should  respect  him 
more  if  he  had  said  he  only  knew  God  through  his 
mother;  for  the  mother  is  still  to  the  hungry  heart  of 
mortals  the  fairest,  the  holiest  incarnation  of  the  ever- 
living,  ever-loving  God.  It  is  she  who  feeds  our  body 
from  her  own  body's  life ;  it  is  she  who  feeds  our  soul 
from  her  own  spirit's  life.  She  taught  the  feet  to 
walk,  the  tongue  to  speak,  guided  our  stammering  lips. 
Her  conscience  went  before  us  as  a  great  wakening 
light,  and  it  is  through  her  that  we  first  became  ac- 
quainted with  our  Father,  God. 


PHASES  OF  DOMESTIC  LIFE  189 

Every  man  that  has  ever  had  a  home  that  was  a  home 
feels  thus,  I  think,  about  the  little  roof  that  sheltered 
him  in  his  childhood,  and  blessed  the  morning  of  his 
days.  How  gladly  great  and  earnest  men,  who  have 
gone  out  into  the  world  and  done  battle  there, —  their 
life  often  a  battle, —  look  back  to  the  little  roof  that 
sheltered  them  when  they  were  children.  The  old  man 
may  be  rich  and  his  father  have  been  never  so  poor ;  he 
ma}'  dwell  to-day  in  a  palace,  and  have  been  born  in  a 
log-cabin  in  the  mountains ;  but  the  house  which  held 
his  cradle  is  still  the  holiest  temple  of  the  affection  to 
him.  How  men  love  to  go  back  in  fancy  to  the  home 
of  their  childhood,  if  home  it  were.  The  old  man 
leaps  all  at  once,  in  his  dreams,  from  his  children,  yes, 
from  his  grandchildren,  to  the  time  and  place  when 
he  was  a  child,  and  a  grandfather's  hand  was  laid 
on  his  head,  who  is  now  himself  a  grandfather,  or 
father  of  grandfathers  even ;  all  the  space  between 
five  generations  is  passed  over  at  once,  and  he  is  a 
blessed  boy  again,  his  early  home  lingering  in  his  ven- 
erable memory  for  all  his  mortal  life, —  the  glad  re- 
membrance of  brother  and  sister,  the  beautiful  affec- 
tion of  uncles  and  aunts,  who  seemed  a  special  prov- 
idence of  love,  watching  over  him,  and  dropping  their 
balmy  offerings  in  his  expectant  hand. 

Then  to  most  men  their  actual  home,  not  that  which 
they  inherit  in  their  memories  from  their  fathers'  and 
mothers'  love,  but  that  which  they  have  made  out  of 
their  own  love,  is  the  center  of  the  world  and  its  para- 
dise for  them.  There  are  those  for  whom  we  would  lay 
down  our  lives,  and  be  proud  of  the  sacrifice,  counting 
it  a  delight,  not  a  denial,  a  great  triumph.  There  are 
the  tenderest  friends,  whose  daily  intercourse  beautifies 
us  with  the  remembrance  of  mutual  kindness  and  for- 


190   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

bearance.     There  husband  and  wife  give  and  forgive, 

bear  and  forbear, —  for  the   wedded  life  is   ruled  by 

the  same  elements  as  those  that  rule  and  checker  the 

sky, 

"  O'er  which  serene  and  stormy  days 
With  sway  alternate  go." 

There  are  the  little  olive-plants  that  spring  about  the 
table,  there  are  brothers  and  sisters,  and  those  not 
joined  always  by  kindred  blood,  but  by  the  tenderer 
tie  of  kindred  soul.  In  families  where  only  filial  and 
parental  love  is  the  bond  that  joins,  and  not  connubial 
love,  there  is  the  same  attachment,  tenderness,  and 
fondness  for  home. 

In  all  our  homes  error  has  been,  for  blood  ill- 
tempered  vexes  all  but  the  rarest  of  men.  There  have 
been  pain  and  penitence  for  the  error,  but  mutual  for- 
giveness brings  a  divine  blossom  out  from  the  human 
weed.  Sickness  has  been  there,  and  pain  has  wrung 
the  brow.  There  have  been  many  a  sorrow  and  tear 
for  hope  deferred,  for  mutual  disappointment ;  sorrow 
for  the  wrong  we  suffer,  and  worser  sorrow  for  the 
wrong  we  do.  Death  has  also  been  there,  now  joyous, 
now  melancholy, —  death  giving  a  sacredness  to  the 
home,  for  the  house  in  which  one  has  never  been  born, 
or  in  which  one  has  never  been  born  to  the  other  world, 
is  only  half  a  house ;  it  is  a  fancy  of  the  carpenter 
and  the  painter,  it  waits  for  the  finish  of  life.  Life, 
too,  is  there,  for  the  family  is  the  gate  of  entrance 
to  the  mortal,  and  the  gate  of  exit  to  the  immortal 
world. 

MARRIAGE 

In  his  enamoured  hour,  the  young  man  puts  a  glass- 
bell  over  the  young  woman,  then  out  of  romance  paints 


PHASES  OF  DOMESTIC  LIFE  191 

a  maiden  fairer  than  the  romantic  curving  moon,  en- 
dows her  with  virtues  collected  from  written  fictions  and 
from  his  own  dreams,  and  then  loves  the  visionary  angel. 
The  young  maiden  does  the  same,  only  painting  her 
ideal  fairer  than  the  young  man  his,  with  less  austere 
traits  than  he  puts  upon  her.  By  and  by  time  breaks 
the  bells,  the  mist  of  romance  has  vanished,  the  vision- 
ary angel  has  fled,  and  there  are  two  ordinary  mortals 
left,  with  good  in  each,  ill  in  both,  and  they  are  to 
find  out  each  other,  and  make  the  best  of  life  they  can. 
No  doubt  there  is  always  a  surprise  to  the  most  discreet 
and  sober  persons.  There  are  ill  things  which  we  did 
not  look  for  in  our  mates,  in  ourselves,  but  there  are 
good  things  also  unexpected.  With  brimming  eyes 
the  wife  of  five  years'  standing  has  soifletimes  said  to 
me,  when  I  asked  intimately  how  her  marriage  sped : 
"  I  thought  I  knew  him  before  you  married  us,  but 
I  did  not  know  what  a  deep  mine  of  noble  things  there 
was  in  him."  And  the  husband  of  five  and  forty  years' 
standing  has  sometimes  told  me  of  the  same  discovery 
in  his  wife,  when  age  had  loosed  the  modest  portals  of 
the  manly  tongue,  and  the  words  came  straightway 
from  his  heart.  Perhaps  the  mutual  surprise  is  as 
often  a  mutual  pleasure  as  unexpected  disappoint- 
ment. Men  and  women,  and  especially  young  people, 
do  not  know  that  it  takes  years  to  marry  completely 
two  hearts,  even  of  the  most  loving  and  well-assorted. 
But  nature  allows  no  sudden  change.  We  slope  very 
gradually  f i^om  the  cradle  to  the  summit  of  life.  Mar- 
riage is  gradual,  a  fraction  of  us  at  a  time.  A  happy 
wedlock  is  a  long  falling  in  love.  I  know  young  per- 
sons think  love  belongs  only  to  the  brown  hair,  and 
plump,  round,  crimson  cheek.  So  it  does  for  its  begin- 
ning, just  as  Mount  Washington  begins  at  Boston  Bay. 


192   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

But  the  golden  marriage  is  a  part  of  love  which  the 
bridal  day  knows  nothing  of.  Youth  is  the  tassel  and 
silken  flower  of  love ;  age  is  the  full  com,  ripe  and  solid 
in  the  ear.  Beautiful  is  the  morning  of  love  with  its 
prophetic  crimson,  violet,  saffron,  purple,  and  gold, 
with  its  hopes  of  days  that  are  to  come.  Beautiful 
also  is  the  evening  of  love,  with  its  glad  remembrances, 
and  its  rainbow  side  turned  towards  heaven  as  well  as 
earth. 

Young  people  marry  their  opposites  in  temper  and 
general  character,  and  such  a  marriage  is  commonly  a 
good  match.  They  do  it  instinctively.  The  young 
man  does  not  say :  "  My  black  eyes  require  to  be  wed 
with  blue,  and  my  over-vehemence  requires  to  be  a  little 
modified  with  somewhat  of  dulness  and  reser\'e," —  and 
when  these  opposites  come  together  to  be  wed,  they  do 
not  know  it;  each  thinks  the  other  just  like  himself. 
Old  people  never  marry  their  opposites ;  they  marry 
their  similars,  and  from  calculation.  Each  of  these 
two  arrangements  is  very  proper.  In  their  long  jour- 
ney, those  young  opposites  will  fall  out  by  the  way  a 
great  many  times,  and  both  get  away  from  the  road ; 
but  each  will  charm  the  other  back  again,  and  by  and 
by  they  will  be  agreed  as  to  the  place  they  will  go  to, 
and  the  road  they  will  go  by,  and  become  reconciled. 
The  man  will  be  nobler  and  larger  for  being  associated 
with  so  much  humanity  unlike  himself,  and  she  will  be 
a  nobler  woman  for  having  manhood  beside  her  that 
seeks  to  correct  her  deficiencies,  and  supply  her  with 
what  she  lacks,  if  the  diversity  is  not  too  great,  and 
there  be  real  piety  and  love  in  their  hearts  to  begin 
with.  The  old  bridegroom  having  a  much  shorter 
journey  to  take,  must  associate  liimself  with  one  like 
himself. 


PHASES  OF  DOMESTIC  LIFE  193 

A  perfect  and  complete  marriage,  wHere  wedlock  is 
everything  you  could  ask,  and  the  ideal  of  marriage 
becomes  actual,  is  not  common,  perhaps  is  as  rare  as 
perfect  personal  beauty.  Men  and  women  are  mar- 
ried fractionally,  now  a  small  fraction,  then  a  large 
fraction.  Very  few  are  married  totally,  and  they 
only,  I  think,  after  some  forty  or  fifty  years  of 
gradual  approach  and  experiment.  Such  a  large  and 
sweet  fruit  is  a  complete  marriage,  that  it  needs  a  very 
long  summer  to  ripen  in,  and  then  a  long  winter  to 
mellow  and  season  it.  But  a  real,  happy  marriage, 
of  love  and  judgment,  between  a  noble  man  and  woman, 
is  one  of  the  things  so  very  handsome,  that  if  the  sun 
were,  as  the  Greek  poets  fabled,  a  god,  he  might  stop 
the  world,  and  hold  it  still  now  and  then,  in  order  to 
look  all  day  long  on  some  example  thereof,  and  feast 
his  eyes  with  such  a  spectacle. 

ELEGANCE  DOES  NOT  MAKE  A  HOME 
I  never  saw  a  garment  too  fine  for  a  man  or  maid; 
there  was  never  a  chair  too  good  for  a  cobbler  or 
cooper  or  king  to  sit  in,  never  a  house  too  fine  to  shel- 
ter the  human  head.  These  elements  about  us,  the 
gorgeous  sky,  the  imperial  sun,  are  not  too  good  for 
the  human  race.  Elegance  fits  man.  But  do  we  not 
value  these  tools  of  housekeeping  a  little  more  than 
they  are  worth,  and  sometimes  mortgage  a  home  for 
the  sake  of  the  mahogany  we  would  bring  into  it.'' 
I  had  rather  eat  my  dinner  off  the  head  of  a  barrel,  or 
dress  after  the  fashion  of  John  tlie  Baptist  in  the  wil- 
derness, or  sit  on  a  block  all  my  life,  than  consume  all 
myself  before  I  got  to  a  home,  and  take  so  much  pains 
with  the  outside  that  the  inside-  was  as  hollow  as  an 
empty  nut.  Beauty  is  a  great  thing,  but  beauty  of 
XI— 13 


194      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

garments,  house,  and  furniture,  is  a  very  tawdry  orna- 
ment compared  with  domestic  love.  All  the  elegance 
in  the  world  will  not  make  a  home,  and  I  would  give 
more  for  a  spoonful  of  real  hearty  love  tlian  for 
whole  shiploads  of  furniture,  and  all  the  gorgeousness 
that  all  the  upholsterers  of  the  world  could  gather  to- 
gether. 

THE  mother's  influence  ON  THE  CHILD 

The  schoolmaster  sees  the  mother's  face  daguerreo- 
typed  in  the  conduct  and  character  of  each  little  boy 
and  girl.  Nay,  a  chance  visitor,  with  a  quick  eye,  sees 
very  plainly  which  child  is  daily  baptized  in  the  tran- 
quil waters  of  a  blessed  home,  and  which  is  cradled  in 
violence  and  suckled  at  the  bosom  of  a  storm.  Did 
you  ever  look  at  a  little  pond  on  a  sour,  dark  day  in 
March.?  How  sullen  the  swampy  water  looked.  The 
shore  pouted  at  the  pond,  and  the  pond  made  mouths 
at  the  land ;  and  how  the  scraggy  trees,  cold  and  bare- 
armed,  scowled  over  the  edge !  But  look  at  it  on  a 
bright  day  in  June,  when  great  rounding  clouds,  all 
golden  with  sunlight,  checker  the  heavens,  and  seem 
like  a  great  flock  of  sheep  which  the  good  God  is  tend- 
ing in  that  upland  pasture  of  the  sky,  and  then  how 
different  looks  that  pond, —  the  shores  all  green,  the 
heavens  all  gay,  and  the  pond  laughs  right  out  and 
blesses  God.  As  the  heaven  over  the  water,  so  a 
mother  broods  over  the  family,  March  or  June,  just 
as  she  will. 

THE  WILL  TO  BE  TRAINED,  NOT  BROKEN 

Men  often  speak  of  breaking  the  will  of  a  child ;  but 
it  seems  to  me  they  had  better  break  the  neck.  The 
will  needs  regulation,  not  destroying.     I  should  as  soon 


PHASES  OF  DOMESTIC  LIFE  195 

think  of  breaking  the  legs  of  a  horse  in  training  him, 
as  a  child's  will.  I  would  discipline  and  develop  it  into 
harmonious  proportions.  I  never  yet  heard  of  a  will 
in  itself  too  strong,  more  than  of  an  arm  too  mighty, 
or  a  mind  too  comprehensive  in  its  grasp,  too  powerful 
in  its  hold. 

The  instruction  of  children  should  be  such  as  to  ani- 
mate, inspire,  and  train,  but  not  to  hew,  cut,  and 
carve ;  for  I  would  always  treat  a  child  as  a  live  tree, 
which  was  to  be  helped  to  grow,  never  as  dry,  dead 
timber,  to  be  carved  into  this  or  that  shape,  and  to  have 
certain  mouldings  grooved  upon  it.  A  live  tree,  and 
not  dead  timber,  is  every  little  child. 

ILL  TEMPER 

A  single  person  of  a  sour,  sullen  temper, —  what  a 
dreadful  thing  it  is  to  have  such  a  one  in  a  house ! 
There  is  not  myrrh  and  aloes  and  chloride  of  lime 
enough  in  the  world  to  disinfect  a  single  home  of  such 
a  nuisance  as  that.  No  riches,  no  elegance  of  mien, 
no  beauty  of  face,  can  ever  screen  such  persons  from 
utter  vulgarity.  There  is  one  thing  which  rising  per- 
sons hate  the  reputation  of  more  than  all  others,  and 
that  is  vulgarity ;  but,  trust  me,  ill  temper  is  the  vul- 
garest  thing  that  the  lowest  bom  and  illest  bred  can 
ever  bring  to  his  home.  It  is  one  of  the  worst  forms 
of  impiet3\  Peevishness  in  a  home  is  not  only  sin 
against  the  Holy  Ghost,  but  sin  against  the  Holy 
Ghost  in  the  very  temple  of  love. 

GOOD  TEMPER 

I  am  surprised  that  intelligent  men  do  not  see  the 
immense  value  of  good  temper  in  their  homes ;  and  am 
amazed  that  they  will  take  such  pains  to  have  costly 


196   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

houses  and  fine  furniture,  and  yet  neglect  to  bring 
home  with  them  good  temper.  Depend  upon  it,  this 
is  the  most  valuable  thing  a  man  can  send  home  or 
keep  at  home.  Is  well-polished  mahogany  so  much 
more  valuable  than  a  well-tempered  man  or  woman, 
that  we  must  make  so  much  sacrifice  for  the  former, 
and  so  little  for  the  latter,  as  we  do  oftentimes.''  A 
feast  of  nightingales'  tongues,  after  the  classic  sort, 
is  very  poor  beside  a  feast  of  pleasant  words  from 
kind  hearts  full  of  mutual  love,  each  assuming  the 
other  better  than  himself. 

INTEMPERANCE  IN  THE  FAMILY 

Shall  I  tell  you  how  Poverty  comes  in  at  the  door 
when  Intemperance  looks  out  at  the  window,  and  makes 
the  wife  shiver  and  peak  and  pine,  and  the  children 
dwindle,  and  their  faces  look  sad  and  prematurely  old? 
The  careful  stranger,  going  into  a  village  school  for 
the  first  time,  with  unerring  certainty  picks  out  the 
drunkard's  children ;  not  by  their  dress,  for  though 
rum  stains  it,  the  wife's  diligence  takes  it  out ;  but  he 
reads  it  in  the  corners  of  the  child's  mouth,  in  his  eye, 
and  in  the  drooping  cheek ;  he  sees  signs  of  the  sorrow, 
and  the  agony,  and  the  bloody  sweat,  which  God  meant 
to  try  heroes  with,  and  great  men,  which  he  never 
meant  for  blameless  babes.  Shall  I  tell  of  the  wife, — 
the  domestic  effect  of  intemperance  on  her, —  the  sus- 
picion kept  from  her  own  consciousness  at  first,  then  a 
belief  of  her  husband's  shame  only  manifest  in  her 
weeping  prayers  to  God,  and  in  a  tenderer  yearning 
towards  him  who  deserves  her  love  the  less,  but  gets 
her  pity  more?  Shall  I  speak  of  the  full  conviction 
of  her  husband's  shame,  of  the  effort  still  to  screen  his 
infirmity  from  the  public  gaze?     All  that  I  have  seen 


PHASES  OF  DOMESTIC  LIFE  197 

a  hundred  times,  and  you  have  seen  it  too.  I  have 
heard  of  armed  men  rushing  into  the  battle's  seven- 
fold heat,  and  bringing  out  a  brother,  a  friend,  a 
general,  or  a  king;  but  woman's  loyal  heart  defends 
her  falling  husband  from  worse  foes.  With  naked 
breast,  she  goes  into  that  fight,  the  most  hopeless  and 
cruellest  of  battles,  to  screen  a  husband  from  the 
world's  well-merited  scorn.  So  she  lives,  married,  but 
the  saddest  of  widows,  till  one  day  the  clods  of  the 
valley  are  sweet  to  her,  and  the  same  bells  that  rang 
joyfully  at  the  half-marriage,  thought  to  be  a  whole 
one,  now  toll  at  the  only  real  wedlock  she  has  known, 
the  union  of  her  body  to  the  grave  and  her  soul  to 
God.  But  the  husband  knows  not  of  the  cruel  suffer- 
ing he  has  caused,  whereby  he  slowly  murdered  her, 
nor  cares  that  his  daughters  and  sons  are  walking 
monuments  through  the  streets,  of  the  same  horrid 
death  which  yet  the  earth  relucts  from,  and  will  not 
hide  within  her  breast. 

VIRTUE  BEGINS  AT  HOME 

Piety  is  the  beauty  of  life  everywhere.  It  is  beau- 
tiful in  the  court,  in  the  senate-house,  in  the  mechanic's 
shop,  at  the  farmer's  plough,  but  its  sweetest  and 
fairest  face  it  puts  on  at  home.  So  a  star  shines  beau- 
tiful for  all  the  world,  a  great  public  light ;  but  it 
shines  fairer,  looks  larger,  and  comes  nearer,  when 
you  see  it  out  of  a  window  in  a  narrow  street  in  the 
city,  and  Sirius  or  Lj'ra  thus  seen  looks  down  upon  you 
with  fuller,  sweeter,  diviner  light. 

Home  is  the  place  wherein  we  must  cultivate  all  the 
narrow  virtues  which  cannot  bear  the  cold  atmosphere 
of  the  outward  world.  If  we  are  to  reform  the  church 
the  state,  the  business,   or   war,  we  need  great   ideas 


198   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

trumpeted  abroad ;  but  we  must  come  home  at  last  to 
teach  the  baby  in  its  mother's  arms.  It  is  in  the  house 
that  we  must  rear  up  those  tender  plants  which  are  one 
day  to  be  a  hedge  to  keep  the  world  of  wickedness  out 
of  the  garden  of  our  civilization.  We  want  great  and 
good  men.  Where  shall  we  find  them?  Here  and 
there  in  society  you  find  one.  Study  his  history,  trace 
him  back  through  the  beginning  of  his  professional 
life,  through  college,  academy,  and  school,  and  at  last 
you  find  where  the  great  Amazonian  river  of  excellence 
took  its  rise.  It  was  in  his  mother's  arms ;  thence  he 
received  the  piety,  there  he  got  the  magnanimity  which 
stands  him  in  such  stead,  and  arms  him  that  he  faints 
not  and  never  fails. 

Mrs.  Motherly  has  lived  many  years  a  wife,  many  a 
mother,  grandmother  even.  She  is  as  industrious  as 
the  good  woman  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  and  her  hus- 
band's large  estate  is  as  much  of  her  saving  as  of  his 
getting.  What  housekeeping  is  hers,  where  there  is 
plenty,  neatness,  order,  regularity,  nothing  wasted. 
She  is  early  up,  not  early  down.  How  busy  those 
fingers  are,  how  nice  those  stitches  seem !  How 
thoughtful  she  is,  with  no  idle  gossip,  with  serious 
thought,  sound  sense,  handsome  wit !  What  exact 
judgment!  How  she  trains  her  children, —  well  edu- 
cated all  of  them,  some  at  college,  some  for  trades, 
all  for  work,  hand  and  head  work.  Her  daughters 
both  know  and  do.  But  she  has  educated  her  husband 
as  well  as  her  children.  Much  of  his  integrity  was 
hers  first ;  a  great  deal  of  the  benevolence  which  makes 
him  honored  in  the  gate  was  her  benevolence ;  he  holds 
by  courtesy  in  his  name,  but  by  his  wife's  right;  she 
showed  him  that  love  of  God  meant  love  of  man ;  and 
that  religious  life  lasted  seven  days  out  of  the  week. 


PHASES  OF  DOMESTIC  LIFE  199 

She  trained  up  her  children,  fed  them  from  her  bosom, 
from  her  soul  also.  How  charitable  she  is !  "  She 
went  and  did  it,"  the  neighbors  say,  "  while  we  were 
talking  about  it."  The  house  is  so  full  of  affection 
that  it  runs  over,  and  goes  all  round  the  town.  She 
is  one  of  the  Lord's  servants  to  do  kindly  deeds,  and 
is  worth  two  or  three  New  Testament  angels,  who  only 
come  on  great  occasions ;  she  is  a  human  angel,  of 
the  Church  of  the  Good  Samaritan.  She  has  children 
on  earth,  grandchildren ;  children  also  in  heaven ;  and 
in  her  evening  prayer  they  all  gather  about  her,  like 
the  angels  about  St.  Cecilia,  half  on  earth,  half  in 
heaven.  How  handsome  her  face  is  now !  not  in  fea- 
ture, but  in  expression, —  a  New  England  face,  full 
of  Christian  graces ;  the  Bible  is  not  fuller  of  trust 
in  God  than  her  face  is  written  all  over  with  the  good 
deeds  she  has  done.  How  venerable  that  face,  full  of 
half  a  century  and  more  of  noble  religious  life!  Her 
children  also  rise  up  and  call  her  blessed. 

PIETY   AT    HOME 

Religion  is  majestic  in  the  state;  it  may  be  grand  in 
the  church, —  in  the  church  building  a  great  institu- 
tion, in  the  state  swaying  the  destinies  of  millions  of 
men.  But  piety  looks  lovelier  and  sweeter  at  home ; 
not  arrayed  in  her  court  dress,  not  set  off  in  her  church 
regimentals,  but  dressed  in  her  homely  week-day,  work- 
day clothes.  It  is  a  little  striking  that  the  word  piety, 
which  so  often  rings  in  the  Christian  Church,  is  men- 
tioned only  once  in  the  English  Bible,  and  then  coupled 
with  the  admonition  to  show  itself  first  at  home. 


EDUCATION 
THE  VALUE  OF  EDUCATION 

Here  we  are,  my  friends,  to  work  for  our  daily  bread. 
That  is  no  curse, —  say  Genesis  what  it  may.  But 
there  is  another  work  to  be  done  at  the  same  time, 
that  is,  to  build  up  an  intellectual  character.  It  would 
not  be  pleasant  to  have  for  an  epitaph,  "  This  man  got 
money,  and  nothing  more."  It  would  be  worse  to  be 
yourself  a  tombstone,  and  be  followed  in  life  with  this 
living  epitaph  about  you.  Yet  there  are  such  men, 
so  building  themselves. 

How  much  we  can  do  for  ourselves  in  this  matter  of 
education !  An  educated  man  doubles  his  estate  in  a 
few  years;  but  he  may  double  himself,  his  personal 
power,  perhaps  in  less  time,  and  so  will  multiply  the 
higher  modes  of  joy.  That  is  not  all.  He  blesses 
others  while  he  cheers  himself.  Each  spot  you  justly 
cultivate  enriches  the  continent,  salubrifies  the  air,  and 
improves  its  temperature;  and  so  each  man  who  justly 
cultivates  his  mind,  the  one  bright  spot  of  verdure, 
salubrifies  the  consciousness  of  men.  He  is  one  more 
worker  on  this  side  of  material  comfort;  one  more 
apostle  of  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good,  faring 
forth,  commissioned  by  his  God  to  evangelize  the  world. 
A  well-instructed  man,  with  mind  enlarged,  and  con- 
science, and  heart,  and  soul  developed,  is  a  safeguard 
and  defense,  a  fortress  and  high  tower.  Such  a  one 
aids  the  great  work  we  all  pray  for,  which  the  noblest 
men  have  labored  to  bring  to  pass,  which  Christ  died 
for.     No  one  of  these  has  ever  wrought  in  vain,  nor 

200 


EDUCATION  201 

does,  nor  ever  shall.  The  fruit  of  your  fidelity, — 
you  enjoy  it  here;  you  enjoy  an  apple,  it  may  be, 
plucked  from  the  tree  of  knowledge.  You  take  it 
with  you  also  when  you  go  hence.  And  the  seed,  love, 
shall  spring  up,  and  become  a  tree  to  feed,  and  heal, 
and  gladden  the  nations  of  the  world  for  many  a 
thousand  years  to  come. 

EXPERIMENTS 

All  man's  conscious  activity  is  at  first  an  experi- 
ment —  an  undertaking  of  which  the  result  is  not 
known  until  after  the  trial.  All  experiment  is  liable  to 
mistake.  There  are  many  ways  of  doing  a  thing,  but 
only  one  way  of  doing  it  best ;  and  it  is  not  likely  that 
every  individual  of  the  human  race  will  hit  the  right 
way  the  first  time  of  trying.  What  succeeds  we  keep 
and  it  becomes  the  habit  of  mankind.  I  take  it,  all 
the  experiments  ever  made,  however  ruinous  to  the 
individual  man,  have  to  the  human  race  been  worth 
all  they  cost,  and  it  was  not  possible  for  the  human 
race  to  have  learned  at  a  cheaper  school  than  that  dear 
one  which  experience  has  taught. 

EDUCATIONAE  VALUE  OF  INDUSTRY 

The  outward  value  of  industry  we  see  very  plainly ; 
but  its  educational  value,  that  is  the  thing  really  of  the 
greatest  importance.  All  the  life  of  mankind  has  been 
school-time ;  all  the  industry  of  mankind  has  been  edu- 
cation for  the  body  and  spirit ;  all  the  tools  of  the 
human  race,  from  the  crooked  stick  which  caught  the 
first  fish  to  the  last  magnificent  clock,  are  instruments 
for  the  education  of  mankind.  But  it  was  not  human 
wit  that  established  this  great  school.  O  no,  far  from 
that.     Men  asked  for  bread  and  cloth,  but  in  getting 


202   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

those  they  grew  wiser  and  better.  The  plan  of  the 
world's  education  lay  in  the  vast  mind  of  the  Infinite 
God.  I  have  often  tried  to  tell  how  the  influence  of 
nature  leads  you  to  admire  the  wisdom  of  God;  and 
that  spectacle  is  truly  a  brave  one.  But  you  cannot 
study  the  history  of  a  single  tool  man  works  with  but 
you  are  amazed  at  the  wisdom  of  God  w^hich  made  that 
tool,  by  which  man  feeds  his  mind  at  the  same  time 
he  feeds  his  mouth. 

See  how  work  is  education.  The  industrious  boy, 
with  active  body  and  mind,  goes  to  learn  a  trade.  It  is 
only  the  actual  trade  the  father  thinks  of,  but  every 
tool  the  boy  learns  to  master  helps  his  intellectual 
development.  The  attempts  made  to  improve  the  cattle 
of  New  England  have  improved  the  farmer  more  than 
his  stock.  Every  bettering  of  a  working  tool  is  a 
bettering  of  the  workman.  The  use  of  cattle  in  the 
rude  ages  is  to  be  set  down  among  the  instructions  of 
the  human  race.  You  see  the  effect  of  labor  in  the 
rude  Irishmen  who  come  here  to  us ;  it  is  the  great 
school  for  them,  for  the  head  and  hand  must  work  to- 
gether. You  may  see  the  educational  effect  of  this 
in  New  England  in  an  eminent  degree.  Here  is  a 
great  industrial  activity,  and  hence  there  is  a  great 
amount  of  thought,  growth,  development  of  mind. 
The  introduction  of  manufactures  into  New  England 
has  done  more  for  the  head  of  the  people  than  for  their 
purse.  Demand  a  skilful  hand,  it  must  needs  have  a 
skilful  head  likewise.  Labor  has  been  the  great  school 
for  the  education  of  mankind.  The  brute  labor,  the 
military  labor,  the  positive  productive  labor  of  our 
times, —  these  only  mark  three  great  classes  in  the  man- 
ual labor  school  of  the  world.  We  ask  only  for  the 
material  result,  poor  ignorant  children  as  we  are ;  but 


EDUCATION  203 

the  Infinite  God  gives  us  also  the  spiritual  training 
of  our  higher  powers,  something  that  we  know  not  of. 
Different  kinds  of  industry  have  different  educational 
values.  The  higher  the  work  is,  the  higher  the  power 
it  demands,  and  the  more  education  it  gives.  The  more 
complicated  the  instrument  which  the  man  learns  to 
master,  the  more  thought  it  calls  for,  the  greater  the 
power  it  develops.  Thus  all  the  higher  callings  of 
mankind  are  instruments  to  elevate  men  to  higher  and 
higher  education.  We  seek  them  first  for  the  material 
purpose,  but  the  good  God  uses  them  for  a  spiritual 
purpose,  making  the  cupidity  and  the  vanity,  as  well 
as  the  wrath  of  man,  serve  His  infinite  design.  With 
us  in  New  England  there  is  a  continual  effort  of 
earnest  men  to  engage  in  the  higher  forms  of  industry, 
and  so  there  comes  a  distaste  for  brute  labor;  and  so 
the  American  youth  is  pressed  into  such  callings  as 
demand  skilful  labor.  As  fast  as  we  get  tired  of  brute 
labor,  we  bring  in  nature's  forces  to  do  it  for  us.  Ad- 
vertise for  brute  labor  which  demands  nothing  but  a 
strong  arm,  force  of  muscles,  and  the  uneducated  for- 
eigner applies  for  that  place ;  advertise  for  skilled 
labor,  and  the  educated  New  Englander  comes  to  the 
place.  So  a  crowd  of  cultivated  applicants  press  into 
all  the  high  places  of  human  toil,  and  there  is  an  in- 
tense activity  of  body  and  mind  to  accomplish  these 
material  purposes.  Once  only  war  could  sting  and 
drive  men  to  such  activity  as  business  demands  every 
day  now.  We  are  up  early  and  lie  down  late,  busy 
with  hand,  and  with  head  busier  yet.  We  ask  only  ma- 
terial power;  but  the  good  God  throws  us  in  spiritual 
power. 

Men  do  not  very  well  understand  what  a  great  check 


204   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

the  want  of  material  means  is  to  the  development  of 
the  rudest  class  of  men  in  society.  They  know  that 
poverty  is  want  of  bread,  want  of  shelter,  want  of 
clothes,  want  of  warmth ;  they  do  not  see  that  it  must 
necessarily  be  also  want  of  wisdom,  want  of  justice, 
want  of  love,  want  of  piety,  want  of  manly  develop- 
ment, and  that  this  is  the  great  misery  of  want. 

ALL  MATERIAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  FORCES  FOR  MAN's 
BENEFIT 

Where  all  work  is  done  by  the  hands  of  men,  man- 
kind is  poor,  and  spiritual  development  is  poor;  only 
few  men  have  comfort,  elegance,  beauty ;  and  fewer  still 
have  intellectual  education,  and  manly  use  and  enjoy- 
ment of  their  powers.  Now  we  have  wind,  water,  fire, 
electricity,  steam ;  these  do  our  work,  and  leave  the 
hands  free.  The  power  of  machinery  in  England 
alone  is  greater  than  the  physical  power  of  all  the  in- 
habitants of  the  earth.  The  three  million  people  of 
New  England  at  this  day,  with  their  power  over  ma- 
terial things,  have  got  a  greater  productive  force  than 
the  four  hundred  millions  of  Chinese.  This  industry 
will  be  so  productive  one  day  that  mankind  will  be  rich 
enough  to  afford  means  of  culture  for  intellect,  con- 
science, heart,  and  soul  to  every  child  bom.  Hitherto 
this  immense  force  of  machinery  has  done  little 
for  the  mass  of  men ;  it  has  raised  them  absolutely, 
but  in  some  countries  has  not  elevated  them  relatively. 
The  day-laborer  of  England  to-day  is  far  behind  the 
capitalist  of  four  hundred  years  ago.  In  America 
this  is  not  so ;  but  the  complicated  and  costly  machin- 
ery generally  has  not  lessened  the  hours  of  toil  for 
those  who  do  the  work.  It  is  destined  however  to  have 
this   effect,    and   already    it   begins   to    accomplish   it. 


EDUCATION  205 

The  practice  of  working  but  ten  hours  a  day,  which 
has  become  universal  in  all  the  large  towns,  and  will 
soon  spread  over  all  the  countrj^,  is  one  sign  of  it, 
and  marks  the  turn  of  the  tide,  which  set  always  before 
in  one  direction.  There  will  doubtless  be  a  great  ex- 
tension of  this  power  of  machinery.  Nature  is  full 
of  forces  waiting  to  serve  us  and  do  our  work,  and 
leave  us  free  to  apply  our  time  to  higher  purposes 
of  toil.  IVIore  servants  wait  on  man  than  he  will  take 
notice  of.  Once  the  river  was  only  a  boundary  be- 
tween states ;  now  it  is  a  great  productive  power. 
Once  steam  was  only  a  boy's  plaything;  now  it  crosses 
the  ocean,  spins  and  weaves,  and  serves  us  in  a  thou- 
sand ways.  These  are  but  a  hundredth  part  of  the 
mighty  forces  nature  holds  in  her  bosom,  waiting  to 
give  to  him  that  is  ready  to  take. 

It  is  a  thing  possible  that  all  work  of  the  human 
race  shall  one  day  become  as  educational  and  as  at- 
tractive as  the  work  of  the  poet  and  naturalist  is  to 
them.  Then  there  will  be  no  drudgery  in  the  world; 
and  I  think  there  are  steps  taken  towards  that  point. 
When  the  science  of  the  ablest  mind  is  directed  to 
securing  the  welfare  of  all  men,  to  distributing  the 
best  gifts  of  civilization  to  all,  then  what  results  are 
possible  to  us  all!  Then  as  so  much  power  of  pro- 
duction, and  so  much  of  spiritual  power,  comes  from 
the  organization  of  a  thought  in  the  material  world, 
how  much  more  will  come  from  the  organization  of 
a  thought  in  man.  We  see  the  power  of  men  organ- 
ized in  an  anu}',  where  the  energy  of  the  ablest  directs 
the  bodies  of  a  hundred  thousand  men  to  the  work  of 
destruction.  We  see  the  power  of  men  organized  in 
a  Church  like  the  Catholic,  in  a  State  like  the  English, 
in  a  community  like  the  Jesuits,  where  the  organiza- 


206   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

tion  is  not  for  the  good  of  all.  We  see  the  power  of 
organization  for  commercial  purposes  in  a  bank,  for 
productive  energy  in  a  manufactory.  One  day  we 
shall  have  the  accumulated  riches,  power,  wisdom,  jus- 
tice, love,  and  piety  of  mankind  organized  by  the 
wisdom,  justice,  love  and  piety  of  some  new  Messiah, 
organized  in  society,  which  shall  secure  the  welfare  of 
all  men ;  and  we  shall  have  a  society  which  shall  bear 
the  same  relation  to  the  absolute  religion  of  the  Infinite 
God  which  the  community  of  the  Jesuits  bears  to  the 
Roman  Church  and  the  pope.  Then  there  will  be  an 
industry  so  great  that  there  will  be  a  material  basis 
sufficient  for  the  spiritual  development  of  every  child. 
Then  all  these  results  of  material  civilization  will  be 
for  all  men,  not  merely  for  a  few.  Then  all  industry 
will  be  attractive  and  educational,  and  the  material  and 
spiritual  riches  of  mankind  be  spread  broadcast,  like 
the  blessed  air  and  sunlight  of  God  on  the  earth. 

THE  NEED  OF   HIGHER  EDUCATION 

All  the  life  of  a  child,  and  of  a  man,  is  educational, 
no  doubt.  The  baby's  hunger  for  its  food,  its  strug- 
gles against  such  as  would  oppose  its  infantile  caprice, 
the  young  man's  hunger  and  struggle  for  other  things, 
the  trials  of  passion,  the  trials  of  ambition, —  all  these 
are  educational,  and  the  worth  of  such  school-time  is 
obvious  enough.  So  all  the  life  of  the  human  race 
is  doubtless  school-time,  and  all  its  struggle  against 
material  want  and  against  human  rapacity  is  educa- 
tional. We  have  teachers  who  address  different  facul- 
ties, and  give  different  lessons, —  Want,  with  its 
terrible  ushers.  War,  Slavery,  Ignorance,  Fraud,  Pros- 
titution ;  many-livericd  Sin  is  a  rough  schoolmaster  in 
the   primary    school    of   mankind's    education.     These 


EDUCATION  207 

teach  slowly,  and  we  learn  very  hard  under  such  tute- 
lage. Religion,  with  her  sweet-faced  helpers.  Piety, 
Morality,  Beauty,  Plenty,  Wisdom,  keeps  school  for 
her  more  advanced  pupils,  who  under  such  tutelage 
learn  gladly  and  fast,  and  have  a  higlier  delight  in 
the  enjoyment  of  higher  faculties  thus  brought  into 
work. 

In  consequence  of  the  youth  of  mankind,  and  the 
inexperience  consequent  thereon,  there  is  a  great  lack 
of  development  of  the  higher  faculties  of  man ;  and 
his  happiness  is  always  proportioned,  first,  to  the  great- 
ness of  the  faculties  which  are  used,  and,  next,  to  the 
completeness  of  their  exercise  and  satisfaction.  So 
there  is  a  great  want  of  the  higher  modes  of  happiness 
amongst  men  everywhere.  The  general  modes  of  life 
quicken  mainly  the  inferior  spiritual  faculties  of  man, 
not  the  superior.  The  public  educational  forces, 
business,  politics,  literature,  preaching,  do  not  tend 
directly  to  produce  noble  men,  men  of  great  mind  and 
conscience,  and  heart  and  soul.  Men  like  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  are  exceptional.  There  is  not  much  machin- 
ery in  the  world  that  is  calculated  to  turn  out  men 
of  that  stamp.  Nay,  men  like  Washington  and 
Franklin  are  exceptional ;  now  exceptional  by  birth, 
born  with  genius ;  then  exceptional  by  culture,  bred 
under  uncommonly  favorable  circumstances.  Even 
physical  beauty  is  the  result  of  exceptional  circum- 
stances ;  it  is  not  instantial  in  any  nation,  in  any  tribe, 
or  in  any  family  of  men ;  all  Christendom  is  a  set  of 
homely  folks  to-day.  Men  are  contented  with  this 
state  of  things,  because  they  form  a  low  estimate  of 
human  nature,  and  do  not  know  what  great  things  we 
are  capable  of  and  meant  for.  Less  than  a  hundred 
years  ago,  three  hundred  women  sat  the  longest  day 


208   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

of  summer  on  Boston  Common,  and  spun  with  three 
hundred  several  wheels,  and  at  the  day's  end  they 
had  a  few  hanks  of  cotton  and  linen  thread  and 
woolen  yarn,  and  they  were  well  content  with  their 
day's  work.  But  when  it  was  found  out  that  any 
lazy  brook  in  New  England,  if  set  properly  to  work, 
could  spin  more  in  a  day  than  all  these  three  hundred 
women  in  a  month,  not  a  woman  was  satisfied  to  trun- 
dle with  her  foot,  and  turn  with  her  hand,  the  wheel, 
on  Boston  Common  or  in  her  house.  And  just  as  the 
power  of  the  brook  lay  sleeping  there,  and  waiting 
to  be  set  to  work,  so  do  greater  powers  in  man  than 
are  yet  developed  lie  sleeping  and  waiting  to  spring 
to  their  toil. 

INTELLECTUAL   CULTURE 

The  greatest  man  New  England  ever  bred  or  bore 
once  pointed  out  the  "  way  to  make  money  plenty  in 
every  man's  pocket."  If  some  one  greater  than  Dr. 
Franklin  should  show  how  to  make  wisdom  plenty  in 
every  man's  head,  what  a  service  that  Poor  Richard 
of  the  soul  would  render  to  mankind;  for  then  money 
also,  power  over  matter,  would  be  abundant  enough, 
and  what  is  a  great  deal  costlier  than  all  money.  But 
as  yet  I  fear  that  few  persons  are  aware  of  the  vast 
treasure  which  God  has  given  in  this  mind  of  ours, 
with  its  threefold  grandeur  of  understanding,  imag- 
ination, and  reason, —  its  practical,  poetic,  and  phil- 
osophic power.  Very  few  men  seem  to  know  to  what 
extent  this  mind  is  capable  of  culture  and  improve- 
ment. 

The  ground  under  our  feet  is  capable  of  indefinite 
bettering.  Nobody  has  yet  found  a  limit  to  its  power 
to  produce  either  use  or  beauty.     From  his  acres  no 


EDUCATION  209 

farmer  has  ever  compelled  the  uttermost  blade  of  com, 
or  coaxed  the  last  violet,  so  that  the  land  shall  say  to 
the  husbandman,  "  Hold,  there !  This  is  my  very 
best.  I  can  no  further, —  so  help  me  God."  There 
is  always  room  for  another  blade  of  corn,  and  another 
violet.  Man  is  the  schoolmaster  for  nature,  and  the 
elements  learn.  What  an  odds  betwixt  the  agricul- 
tural power  of  New  England  to-day  and  three  hun- 
dred years  ago,  between  the  land  of  forests  and  the 
land  of  farms !  And  yet  we  are  not  near  the  limit 
of  this  productive  power.  "  To-morrow  to  fresh  fields 
and  pastures  new,"  says  every  farmer  and  gardener. 
To  the  human  mind  there  is  no  limit,  conceivable 
to  us.  In  many  generations  savage  humanity  comes 
up  to  a  Socrates  or  an  Aristotle.  Humanity  does  not 
stop  there ;  it  takes  a  new  departure,  and  rises  again, 
—  for  a  man  of  genius  is  only  one  twig  on  the  world's 
tree,  where  the  highest  bird  of  humanity  alights  for 
a  moment,  and  with  her  beak  plumes  her  wings  for 
a  higher  flight.  Aristotle  and  Socrates  only  got  so 
far  as  they  could  in  threescore  years  and  ten,  not  so 
far  as  humanity  could  in  threescore  years  and  ten ; 
nay,  not  so  far  as  themselves  can  reach  in  seventy 
times  seven  3'ears ;  for  I  take  it  the  old  philosopher 
who  ceased  to  be  mortal  some  three  and  twenty  hun- 
dred years  ago,  drinking  the  wicked  hemlock  which 
was  his  city's  reward  to  him  for  being  the  wisest  man 
in  all  the  round  earth,  is  but  the  feeblest  infant  com- 
pared to  the  vast  philosopher  he  has  expanded  into, 
in  the  centuries  that  have  since  passed  by.  Taking, 
therefore,  the  immortal  nature  of  man  into  considera- 
tion, as  well  as  his  mortal,  there  is  no  limit  conceivable 
to  his  power  of  growth  and  expansion. 

This   intellectual  culture  is  of  great  value.     First, 
XI— 14 


210   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

it  is  a  means  of  power  over  nature,  and  hence  of  com- 
fort, of  riches,  of  beauty.  Money  is  the  conventional 
representative  of  value,  but  mind  is  the  actual  creator 
of  value.  Wisdom, —  it  is  bread,  it  is  beauty,  it  is 
protection,  it  is  all  forms  of  riches,  in  fact  or  in  pos- 
sibility. Thought  is  power  over  matter;  thereby  we 
put  want  at  defiance.  Do  you  wish  to  increase  the 
riches  of  America,  of  Massachusetts,  to  enlarge  the 
amount  of  food,  houses,  clothes,  means  of  comfort  and 
ornament?  Cultivate  the  mind;  it  is  practical  power. 
Do  you  wish  to  put  national  poverty  at  defiance? 
Enlarge  the  power  of  thought.  The  mind  of  New 
England  runs  through  the  school-house,  and  then  jumps 
over  the  ditch  of  poverty,  where  lie  Spain,  Italy, 
Portugal,  Ireland,  and  many  another  country  that 
never  took  its  start  by  the  run  in  the  school-house, 
and  so  failed  to  leap  the  ditch,  and  there  lies  to  perish. 
The  wisest  individuals  are  seldom  the  richest  persons ; 
but  the  wisest  nations  are  always  the  wealthiest.  But 
this  is  the  very  lowest  use  of  wisdom.  Yet  it  is  indis- 
pensable; it  prepares  the  material  basis  whereon  high 
character  is  to  rest,  and  be  builded  up. 

Wisdom  is  able  to  help  the  higher  forms  of  human 
development.  It  is  valuable  as  money ;  it  is  more 
valuable  likewise  as  manhood.  The  power  of  mind  is 
itself  an  end,  furnishing  wonderful  and  elevating  de- 
lights ;  but  it  is  likewise  a  means  to  the  higher  develop- 
ment of  qualities  nobler  than  the  mere  intellect. 

But  as  an  end,  the  delight  of  intellectual  power,  of 
thought,  of  reflection,  of  imagination,  of  reason, — 
what  a  grand  and  noble  satisfaction  it  is !  It  is  a 
sublime  pleasure  to  read  this  great  book  of  Nature, 
the  Old  Testament  of  God,  written  not  on  two,  but  on 
millions  of  tables  of  stone,  all  illuminated  with  those 


EDUCATION  211 

diagrams  of  fire,  that  bum  night  after  night  all  round 
the  world;  to  know  the  curious  economy  whereby  a 
rose  grows  out  of  the  dark  ground,  and  is  beautiful 
all  over  and  fragrant  all  through  ;  to  learn  the  curious 
chemistry  whereby  nature  produces  green  and  golden 
ornaments,  fed  by  the  same  ground,  watered  by  the 
same  clouds,  and  furnished  into  such  various  beauty 
by  the  same  sunlight  which  they  absorb  and  reflect. 

What  a  glorious  thing  it  is  to  understand  this  New 
Testament  of  God,  the  nature  of  man,  his  past,  his 
present,  and  his  future ;  to  understand  the  more  curi- 
ous physiology  of  the  human  spirit,  and  that  marvel- 
ous chemistry  of  mind,  metaphysics,  psychology, 
ontology,  whereby  we  build  us  up  the  beings  that  we 
are,  flame  into  flowers  more  radiant  and  more  fragrant 
than  any  rose  wrapped  in  its  cloth  of  gold. 

The  man  of  letters  has  the  sublime  joy  of  welcom- 
ing the  income  of  new  thought  to  his  mind,  of  creating 
new  forms  thereof.  Homer,  wandering  from  town  to 
town, —  how  delighted  his  heart  must  have  been  with 
such  a  paradise  of  poetry  coming  up,  growing,  blos- 
soming, bearing  fruit  in  his  masterly  mind.  Poor 
Scotch  Burns,  in  the  midst  of  his  wretchedness,  caused 
by  wantonness  and  drink,  consoled  himself  with  "  the 
vision  and  the  faculty  divine  "  of  the  poet,  the  "  ac- 
complishment of  verse "  embalming  his  thought  in 
such  lovely  forms  that  mankind  will  never  let  them 
perish,  nor  break  off'  a  thread  therefrom.  How  great 
are  the  delights  of  science,  to  the  naturalist,  the 
astronomer,  the  geologist.  Entranced  in  his  toilsome 
studies,  Newton  forgot  the  heat,  forgot  the  cold,  was 
careless  of  day  and  night,  and  the  untasted  food  for 
breakfast,  for  dinner,  and  for  supper,  came  before 
him,  and  before  him  went ;  he  touched  it  not.     Toil 


212   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

was  it?     Ay,  it  was  the  toil  of  heaven.     It  was  God's 
toil,  but  it  was  itself  a  beatitude. 

But  this  exalted  enjoyment  is  for  but  few  persons. 
Few  creators  are  there  in  literature  or  in  science. 
There  is  only  one  Homer,  but  a  great  swarm  of  imi- 
tators, commentators,  and  translators.  Let  us  not 
find  fault  with  them.  They  cut  off  a  scion  from  the 
great  poetic  tree,  carry  it  abroad,  and  plant  it  in 
other  lands,  where  it  shall  grow,  and  thousands  shall 
gladden  at  its  sight,  and  pause,  and  pitch  their  tents 
in  its  welcome  and  blessed  shade.  It  is  a  great  joy 
to  take  thought  at  second-hand.  Then  men  rejoice 
in  what  others  discover  and  create.  You  may  enjoy 
society,  without  being  father  and  mother  to  all  your 
acquaintance.  The  pleasures  of  the  intellect  not  cre- 
ative, but  only  recipient,  have  never  been  fully  appre- 
ciated. What  a  joy  is  there  in  a  good  book,  writ  by 
some  great  master  of  thought,  who  breaks  into  beauty, 
as  in  summer  the  meadow  into  grass  and  dandelions 
and  violets,  with  geraniums,  and  manifold  sweetness. 
As  an  amusement,  that  of  reading  is  worth  all  the  rest. 
What  pleasure  in  science,  in  literature,  in  poetry,  for 
any  man  who  will  but  open  his  eye  and  his  heart  to 
take  it  in.  What  delight  an  audience  of  men,  who 
never  speak,  take  in  some  great  orator,  who  looks  into 
their  faces,  and  speaks  into  their  hearts,  and  then  rains 
a  meteoric  shower  of  stars,  falling  from  his  heaven 
of  genius  before  their  eyes ;  or,  far  better  still,  with 
a  whole  day  of  sunlight  warms  his  audience,  so  that 
every  manly  and  womanly  excellence  in  them  buds  and 
blossoms  with  fragrance,  one  day  to  bear  most  luscious 
fruit  before  God,  fruit  for  mortality,  fruit  for  eter- 
nity not  less.  I  once  knew  a  hard-working  man,  a 
farmer  and  mechanic,  who  in  the  winter  nights  rose 


EDUCATION  213 

a  great  while  before  day,  and  out  of  the  darkness 
coaxed  him  at  least  two  hours  of  hard  study,  and  then, 
when  the  morning  peeped  over  the  eastern  hills,  he 
yoked  his  oxen  and  went  forth  to  his  daily  work,  or 
in  his  shop  he  labored  all  day  long;  and  when  the 
night  came,  he  read  aloud  some  simple  book  to  his 
family ;  but  when  they  were  snugly  laid  away  in  their 
sleep,  the  great-minded  mechanic  took  to  his  hard 
study  anew ;  and  so,  year  out  and  year  in,  he  went  on, 
neither  rich  nor  much  honored,  hardly  entreated  by 
daily  work,  and  yet  he  probably  had  a  happiness  in 
his  heart  and  mind  which  the  whole  country  might 
have  been  proud  to  share. 

It  is  only  a  small  class  of  men  who  have  much  time 
for  literature  or  science.  The  class  that  has  most 
is  not  the  most  fortunate  nor  the  happiest.  Some 
persons  mourn  at  this  ;  but  you  do  not  wish  the  whole 
world  to  be  run  over  with  medical  plants,  or  roses  and 
anemones ;  it  must  be  mainly  set  with  grass  for  the 
cattle  and  com  for  men.  There  will  always  be  twenty 
thousand  farmers  for  one  botanist,  a  million  readers 
for  one  great  creative  poet.  With  the  mass  of  men 
to-day  their  life  is  devoted  to  industry, —  the  creation 
or  traffic  in  material  things.  To  mankind,  literature 
and  science  are  only  the  little  dainty  garden  under 
the  window,  where,  in  her  spare  time,  the  noble  farm- 
er's daughter  cultivates  her  great  hollyhocks  and 
marigolds,  or  little  plants  at  their  foot,  dainty  mignon- 
ette, heart's-ease,  and  forget-me-not,  to  cheer  her 
father,  all  forcdone  with  toil,  or  to  signify  to  her 
lover  what  fragrant  affection  she  bears  for  him,  and 
how  she  thinks  of  him  when  far  away,  while  watering 
her  forget-me-nots  with  her  love,  not  less  than  with 
water  drawn  from  the  well ;  or  therein  she  cultivates 


214   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

choice  herbs,  to  take  away  the  grief  of  a  wound,  or 
to  lengthen  out  the  httle  span  of  human  life.  So, 
to  the  mass  of  men,  literature  and  science  are  not  the 
web  of  life ;  they  are  onl}^  the  little  fringe,  an  oraa- 
ment  which  hangs  round  its  borders. 

But  what  a  delight  power  of  thought  gives  to  the 
commonest  occupations  of  life,  though  it  may  not 
exhibit  itself  in  power  of  speech.  The  man  of  letters 
utters  words,  the  man  of  business  things.  Com  and 
cattle  are  the  farmer's  words,  houses  are  the  language 
of  the.  carpenter,  locomotives  are  the  iron-worker's 
speech,  and  the  wares  of  the  merchant  are  the  utterance 
of  his  mental  calculation.  There  is  a  great  mistake 
in  respect  to  this  matter.  The  sophomore  at  college, 
who  knows  very  poorly  the  grammars  of  some  half  a 
dozen  tongues,  and  can  speak  and  write  without  vio- 
lating the  rules  of  the  king's  English,  thinks  his 
cousin  and  uncle,  who  cannot  talk  five  minutes  with- 
out violating  the  king's  English,  are  very  poorly 
educated.  But  the  power  of  thought  is  one  part  of 
culture,  and  the  power  of  speech  is  only  another.  I 
do  not  say  that  we  overrate  the  power  of  speech  ;  we 
underrate  the  power  of  thought.  I  once  knew  a 
grocer,  who  knew  the  history  of  all  the  articles  in  his 
wealthy  shop,  whence  they  came,  how  they  were  pro- 
duced, for  what  they  were  useful.  He  made  his  shop 
a  library,  and  got  as  much  science,  ay,  as  much  poetry, 
out  of  it  as  many  a  scholar  from  his  library  of 
l)ooks.  He  was  a  grocer;  but  he  was  also  a  man  in 
the  grocery  business,  which  is  another  thing.  So  the 
farmer,  builder,  smith,  may  get  a  grand  culture  from 
his  calling.  It  is  only  the  mistake  of  men,  and  the 
poverty  of  the  world's  civilization,  which  would  limit 
the  power  of  thought  to  an}^  class  of  men.     One  day 


EDUCATION  215 

mankind  will  be  wise  and  rich  enough  to  enable  every- 
body to  start  with  a  great  capital  of  culture.  Then 
we  shall  find  that  the  commonest  callings  of  life  arc 
as  educational  as  the  callings  of  the  minister,  the  doc- 
tor, and  the  lawyer,  and  other  avocations  which  we 
now  call  liberal. 

But  what  an  odds  is  there  in  the  power  of  thought 
amongst  men  in  the  common  callings  of  life.  I  sup- 
pose there  are  a  thousand  young  men  in  Boston,  be- 
tween twenty  and  thirty  years  of  age,  salesmen,  clerks, 
and  the  like,  with  no  inherited  or  accumulated  prop- 
erty, their  body  and  skill  their  only  estate.  They 
earn  from  three  hundred  and  fifty  to  a  thousand  dol- 
lars a  year,  and  spend  the  whole  of  their  income. 
When  thirty  years  old  they  will  not  have  a  cent  more 
property  than  when  twenty,  except  what  consists  in 
fine  clothes,  opera-glasses,  watches,  rings,  and  other 
articles  of  show.  They  have  no  books,  and  very  little 
intellectual  culture.  They  are  up  late  at  night,  down 
very  late  in  the  morning.  They  know  all  the  opera- 
dancers  and  the  reputation  of  actors ;  but  if  you  were 
to  ask  them  whether  Samuel  Adams  was  bom  and  bred 
in  Boston  or  Savannah,  they  would  scarcely  know ; 
or  whether  the  Pilgrims  landed  on  Plymouth  Rock 
before  Columbus  discovered  America,  or  some  hun- 
dred years  after.  You  smile, —  but  what  a  dark  side 
there  is  to  it  all.  Trace  such  a  young  man  through 
life,  his  public  career  in  the  shop  where  he  unwillingly 
passes  his  time  and  earns  his  money,  his  private  career 
through  the  theater,  dram-shop,  and  brothel,  till  at 
last  he  comes  to  the  grave,  a  worthless  fragment  of 
humanity.  But  this  is  not  all.  You  cannot  be  a 
fool  but  a  hundred  others  must  smart  for  your  folly ; 
and   the   bitter   execrations    which   the    writer    of   the 


216      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

Book  of  Proverbs  launches  on  the  head  of  the  fool, 
apply  to  the  fool  in  morals,  not  to  the  simpleton. 
They  are  well  deserved,  and  the  human  race  knows 
how  true  they  are. 

Now  and  then  you  see  one  who  resolves  also  to  be 
a  man.  He  wastes  little  on  ornament  outwardly,  is 
not  distinguished  by  his  gay  apparel ;  he  wears  angel's 
garments  next  to  his  soul.  He  masters  his  business, 
knows  all  its  details,  the  history  of  the  articles  he 
traffics  in,  makes  his  shop  serve  his  mind,  while  it 
pays  a  profit  also  to  his  purse.  He  lives  in  his  reason, 
in  his  imagination,  as  well  as  in  his  appetites.  Which 
gets  the  most  delight  in  his  life,  this  man  or  the  man 
who  is  the  slave  of  his  senses  ? 

Many  years  ago,  a  noble  young  man  was  bom  of 
one  of  the  poorest  families  in  this  State.  He  served 
for  a  time  in  a  ship-chandler's  shop  in  a  wealthy  town, 
and  did  the  service  in  the  family  of  his  master,  living 
in  the  kitchen.  Sometimes  a  stranger  in  the  family 
would  ask,  "  What's  Nat  doing.''  "  and  some  one  would 
reply,  with  a  smile  of  ridicule,  "  He's  making  his 
almanac."  It  was  an  almanac  w^hereby  the  boy 
Bowditch,  thirteen  years  old,  in  a  ship-chandler's 
kitchen,  was  learning  the  lessons  which  God  is  teach- 
ing in  the  heavens.  He  kept  his  own  time,  knew  the 
quadrature ;  full  of  thought,  the  mutations  of  his  in- 
tellect were  recorded  therein.  But  when  the  master 
of  a  ship,  sailing  through  the  darkness,  the  light  burn- 
ing in  the  binnacle,  there  was  a  brighter  light  that 
burned  in  his  little  cabin,  where  he  was  building  up 
the  great  manhood  which  is  now  one  of  the  ornaments 
of  his  town,  his  state,  his  nation,  and  the  world. 

For  the  first  lessons  in  thought  and  the  right  use 
of  the  mind,  the  child  must  depend  on  his  parents,  and 


EDUCATION  217 

especially  on  the  mother.  Woman  is  the  oldest  school- 
master, mother  of  bodies,  mother  also  of  the  culti- 
vated mind, —  body  and  soul  feeding  on  the  mother's 
breast,  which  colors  the  mortal  thought  for  fourscore 
years.  What  a  difference  between  the  girl  born  and 
bred  in  a  family  of  thinking,  well-cultivated  men  and 
women,  and  one  of  a  family  with  no  education,  no 
desire  for  it,  no  thought.  A  vast  estate,  a  great 
house,  rich  furniture,  teachers  of  dancing,  music, 
mathematics,  language,  painting,  history,  philosophy, 
—  I  would  give  them  all  for  one  good,  refined,  ele- 
vated, noble  woman,  to  cradle  her  little  immortals,  not 
only  in  her  bounteous  lap,  but  also  in  her  affluent 
mind.  The  formation  of  the  character  is  a  mighty 
trust  God  gives  into  woman's  hands,  and  very  for- 
tunate it  is  that  she  has  such  a  superiority  in  many 
nice  matters. 

What  a  difference  there  is  in  the  culture  men  and 
women  get.  Here  is  a  young  woman  of  showy  ac- 
complishments, who  chatters,  and  frolics,  and  plays  a 
quick-step,  and  sings  an  Ethiopian  song.  She  has 
pert  wit,  a  shallow  soul,  is  idle  and  vulgar-minded. 
Poor  young  woman !  I  know  your  history.  Some 
foolish  young  man  will  one  day  call  you  wife ;  there 
will  be  a  communication  of  gifts,  the  congratulation 
of  hollow-hearted  friends,  who  mean  nothing,  and 
your  wedding  will  be  a  sacrament  of  confectionery. 
Then  what  a  household  there  will  be!  Real  sorrows 
will  come  into  it,  and  of  what  comfort  will  your  showy 
accomplishments  be  then?  And  do  you  expect  to 
train  up  children  on  silks,  and  rings,  and  fashions, 
and  porcelain,  and  negro  minstrelsy?  Nothing  comes 
of  nothing;  —  it  is  a  law  of  Almighty  God.  "Van- 
ity of  vanities,"  should  be  engraved  over  the  portal 
of  such  a  home. 


218   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

Here  are  some  also  seeking  for  a  noble  intellectual 
culture.  They  array  them  in  such  garments  as  cus- 
tom demands  of  them,  have  spare  time  and  money  for 
their  mind.  Where  ideas  are  spoken  there  are  these 
young  women  found.  A  little  money  purchases  a 
few  good  books,  and  these  ships  of  thought  unlade 
their  wealthy  freight  at  the  poor  girl's  door.  Daugh- 
ters of  rich  men  also  have  I  known,  not  a  few,  some 
of  them  gifted  with  God's  sweet  benediction  of  beauty, 
seeking  noble  culture  of  the  mind,  in  art,  letters, 
science, —  power  to  think,  to  understand,  to  create. 
I  see  the  future  of  these  young  women.  Their  char- 
acter is  something  I  am  sure  of.  I  know  that  granite 
is  hard,  and  will  last.  I  know  that  these  characters, 
so  delicate,  will  stand  all  manner  of  fire,  which  granite 
cannot.  Each  one  of  these  will  be  a  candle  in  some 
happy  home,  where  one  by  one  a  thousand  little 
torches  will  get  lit,  to  scatter  light  through  the  dark- 
ness, each  one  a  lamp  of  beauty  and  blessedness.  Real 
sorrow  will  come  also  to  the  homes  of  these  women, 
when  young,  and  when  no  longer  young.  It  will 
shake  the  door  and  come  in,  but  wisdom  sanctifies 
the  sorrow,  and  the  angel  of  destruction  lays  a  blessing 
where  he  took  a  friend,  and  the  house  is  filled  with  the 
odor  of  ointment  coming  from  the  alabaster  box  which 
the  angel  brought  and  broke. 

The  value  of  intellectual  culture, —  nobody  knows 
it  all.  How  it  affects  a  man's  religious  growth. 
What  an  odds  between  the  religion  of  the  man  who 
thinks  and  knows,  and  that  of  one  who  merely  accepts 
folly  traditionally  handed  down.  What  a  difference 
between  the  minister  who  never  thinks,  but  only  prat- 
tles and  gossips,  or  at  the  very  utmost  only  quotes, 
with  no  aboriginal  piety  and  wisdom,  and  the  minister 


EDUCATION  219 

who  reaches  his  own  right  arm  into  God's  heaven,  and 
gets  inspiration  for  himself,  and  then  preaches  a  natu- 
ral religion  based  on  the  facts  of  every  man's  con- 
sciousness, on  the  constitution  of  the  universe  and 
the  higher  law  of  God.  The  ignorant  minister,  hawk- 
ing at  geology  and  schism,  preaches  superstition  in 
the  name  of  God,  and  Atheism  springs  up  in  his  fur- 
rows, and  shouts  behind  him, — "  No  higher  law !  " 
"  Down  with  Jesus  !  Away  with  him !  Not  this  man 
but  Barabbas ! "  But  the  wise  minister  goes  forth, 
carrying  precious  seed.  He  shall  come  also,  bringing 
his  sheaves  with  him.  Thousands  of  generations  shall 
rejoice  in  his  life,  long  after  the  tombstone  shall  have 
crumbled  into  dust  on  his  forgotten  grave.  You  can- 
not be  a  fool  without  cursing  mankind ;  you  cannot 
be  wise  without  blessing  them.  Every  particle  of 
wisdom  you  gain  for  yourself  is  given  to  the  whole 
world.  "  Thou  shalt  serve  the  Lord  with  all  thy 
mind !  "- —  what  a  great  command  it  was.  And  is  it 
not  your  duty  and  mine,  ay,  is  it  not  our  privilege, 
to  cultivate  the  gift  God  has  given  us,  and  enlarge  it 
into  glorious  beauty,  and  then  have  the  crown  and  the 
satisfaction  which  shall  come  from  true  wisdom  in  this 
life  and  the  life  to  come.? 

Riches  have  their  service.  I  have  nothing  to  say 
against  them,  very  much  in  their  commendation.  But 
who  is  there  that  would  not  have  inherited  wisdom 
from  his  father,  rather  than  all  the  gold  of  California  ? 
Is  there  a  mother  or  father  who  would  not  rather 
leave  wisdom  to  their  children  than  all  riches.?  Few 
men  can  leave  a  great  estate  of  gold;  every  man  can 
leave  an  estate  of  wisdom  if  he  will. 

I  value  the  education   of  the   intellect  not  for  its 


220      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

present  joy  alone,  but  for  the  greater  growth  it  gives, 
the  enlargement  of  the  cup  to  take  in  more  and  higher 

joys. 

BOOKS 

I  fear  we  do  not  know  what  a  power  of  immediate 
pleasure  and  permanent  profit  is  to  be  had  in  a  good 
book.  The  books  which  help  you  most  are  those 
which  make  you  think  the  most.  The  hardest  way  of 
learning  is  by  easy  reading;  every  man  that  tries  it 
finds  it  so.  But  a  great  book  that  comes  from  a  great 
thinker, —  it  is  a  ship  of  thought,  deep  freighted  with 
truth,  with  beauty  too.  It  sails  the  ocean,  driven  by 
the  winds  of  heaven,  breaking  the  level  sea  of  life  into 
beauty  where  it  goes,  leaving  behind  it  a  train  of 
sparkling  loveliness,  widening  as  the  ship  goes  on. 
And  what  treasures  It  brings  to  every  land,  scatter- 
ing the  seeds  of  truth,  justice,  love,  and  piety,  to  bless 
the  world  In  ages  yet  to  come. 

The  accomplished  orator  treads  the  stage,  and  holds 
in  his  hand  the  audience,  hour  after  hour,  descanting 
on  the  nation's  fate,  the  nation's  duty.  Men  look  up 
and  say  how  easy  it  Is,  that  It  Is  very  wonderful,  and 
how  fortunate  it  Is  to  be  bom  with  such  a  power. 
But  behind  every  little  point  of  accomplishment,  there 
Is  a  great  beam  of  endeavor  and  toil  that  reaches  back 
from  the  man's  manhood  to  his  earliest  youth. 

THE  POWER  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  IDEAS 

Whatever  a  man  consciously  makes  is  always  a 
thought  before  It  Is  a  thing.  This  Is  true  of  all 
things,  from  the  point  of  a  pin  to  the  political  insti- 
tutions which  join  five  and  sixty  millions  of  Russians 


EDUCATION  221 

into  an  empire.  The  pin  is  pointed  with  thought,  and 
sticks  in  the  inventor's  mind  before  it  exists  as  a  fasten- 
ing in  a  bab3''s  garment.  The  Russian  Empire  is  only 
the  thought  of  Peter  the  Great  and  his  rather  short- 
hved  ten  successors,  added  to  the  thought  of  such  as 
went  before  them.  So  far  as  the  noble  life  of  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  came  out  of  his  will,  that  is,  so  far  as  it 
was  personal  life,  not  mechanical  but  self-conscious, 
it  was  first  a  thought.  The  excellencies  of  his  right- 
eousness were  first  only  opinions,  ideas,  intentions. 
Thus  a  thing  is  the  outside  of  a  thought;  a  thought 
is  the  inside  of  a  thing.  A  steam-engine  is  only  a 
great  opinion  dressed  in  iron,  and  it  ran  in  somebody's 
head  before  it  could  be  set  a-going  on  any  railroad; 
nay,  the  railroad  itself  is  a  thought, —  the  bars,  the 
cross-ties,  and  the  foundation. 

There  are  false  ideas  and  true  ones.  A  truth  is  an 
idea  which  represents  things  as  they  are,  a  falsehood 
is  an  idea  which  represents  things  as  they  are  not. 
Falsehood  is  of  two  forms.  First  there  is  uninten- 
tional falsehood,  and  when  that  is  arrived  at  carefully, 
it  is  a  mistake;  when  it  is  jumped  at  capriciously,  it 
is  a  whim.  Then  there  is  the  intended  falsehood, 
which  is  not  a  mistake,  but  a  mistelling,  a  lie.  While 
a  man  firmly  holds  to  a  false  idea,  thinking  it  true,  he 
will  naturally  follow  it  out,  and  he  is  to  be  respected 
for  his  fidelity  to  his  own  conscience,  even  though  his 
conviction  be  wrong.  Not  the  truth  of  opinions,  but 
the  conscientious  fidelity  wherewith  we  arrive  at,  and 
keep,  and  apply  the  opinions,  is  the  test  of  manly 
virtue.  Truth  or  falsehood,  however,  must  bear  fruit 
after  its  kind,  and  a  man's  sincere  belief  in  a  falsehood, 
and  his  fidelity  to  his  own  consciousness,  will  never 
secure  him  from  the  bad  consequences  of  a  bad  thought 


222      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

when  it  is  made  a  thing.  The  Canada  Indians,  de- 
ceived by  the  hunters,  fully  believed  that  gunpowder 
was  raised  in  the  fields  like  wheat  and  caraway,  and 
sowed  it  in  their  little  gardens  for  seed;  but  their 
sincerity  of  belief  did  not  make  it  sprout  and  grow ; 
they  waited  a  long  time,  but  the  gunpowder  harvest 
never  came. 

Now,  as  a  good  deal  of  a  man's  conduct,  and  so  his 
character,  depends  on  his  will,  and  as  ideas,  true  or 
false,  are  the  patterns  whereby  the  will  shapes  our  time 
into  life,  and  our  generic  human  substance  into  specific 
personal  character,  you  see  how  important  it  is  to  have 
true  ideas,  which  represent  the  facts  of  human  nature, 
human  duty,  and  human  destination,  to  start  with. 
The  chaisemaker,  the  tailor,  the  shoemaker,  each  wants 
good  material  to  work  on,  good  tools  to  work  with, 
and  good  patterns  also  to  work  by ;  else  his  manufac- 
ture is  neither  useful  nor  beautiful.  Now  we  are  all 
mechanics  of  life,  whereof  ideas  are  the  patterns.  In 
the  conduct  of  life,  it  is  not  enough  to  feel  right,  to 
desire  right  ends ;  we  must  think  right,  devise  ideas 
which  are  the  right  means  to  right  ends.  A  fig-tree 
looking  on  a  fig-tree  becometh  fruitful,  it  is  true;  but 
a  naked  savage  looking  on  a  sheep  does  not  become 
clad  in  broadcloth'.  Men  merely  desiring  an  excellence 
of  manhood  do  not  attain  to  it.  We  must  form  an 
idea  thereof,  devise  the  means  thereto,  and  copy  it  into 
life. 

In  the  conduct  of  rational  and  civilized  men  there 
are  always  three  things, —  first  an  emotion,  next  an 
idea,  and  ultimately  an  act.  In  the  conduct  of  the 
lower  animals  there  are  two  things,  emotions  and  acts,, 
no  ideas.  God  is  mind  for  the  emmet  and  the  bee ;  it 
is  His  ideas,  not  theirs,  which  they  copy,  in  wax  or  in 


EDUCATION  223 

dust.  There  is  no  public  opinion  in  the  ant-hill ; 
there  is  no  opinion  at  all,  only  instinctive  feeling  and 
instinctive  action.  But  man  has  the  power  to  create 
the  middle  terms  between  his  primitive  emotion  and  his 
ultimate  act.  He  can  know  beforehand  how  his  work 
will  look  when  it  is  done.  So,  under  the  general  provi- 
dence of  God,  man  is  mind  to  himself,  and  constructs 
the  patterns  whereby  he  fashions  his  conduct,  his  life, 
his  character.  God  taketh  thought  for  oxen,  not  they 
for  themselves.  Man  must  take  thought  for  himself. 
The  beavers  at  the  Lake  of  the  Woods  last  summer 
forecast  no  plans  of  the  huts  which  they  were  making, 
with  the  walls  uncommonly  thick,  to  provide  against 
the  hard  winter.  They  did  not  know  the  hard  winter 
was  coming;  God  knew  it,  and  thought  for  them,  and 
daguerreotyped  the  fashion  of  their  huts,  which  the 
beavers  followed,  ignorant,  unconscious, 

"  Glad  hearts,  without  mistake  or  blot, 
Who  do  the  worii,  yet  know  it  not." 

But  Michael  Angelo  at  Rome,  who  at  the  end  of  the 
middle  ages  was  about  to  build  St.  Peter's  Church,  the 
great  beavers'  hut  of  all  Christendom,  before  he  drove 
a  nail,  or  bought  a  stick  of  timber,  had  to  work  years 
long  in  setting  the  house  up  in  his  head ;  3^ca,  the  form 
of  every  girder,  the  junction  of  every  groin,  where 
two  arches  meet,  the  shape  of  every  brick,  the  form, 
size,  and  shape  of  all  the  scaffoldings,- —  all  these  had 
their  patterns  in  INIichacl's  thought  before  they  became 
tangible  things.  God  gives  man  the  power  to  con- 
struct the  middle  terms,  ideas,  the  power  to  make  the 
patterns  which  he  will  follow.  When  the  in  becomes 
out,  the  excellence  or  defect  of  the  ideal  will  appear 
in  the  actual  work.     The  wheel  which  ran  awry  in  the 


2U      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

head  will  not  run  true  in  the  mill,  whether  the  con- 
trivance be  a  mill  for  grinding  a  man's  coffee  in  the 
morning,  or  a  contrivance  for  grouping  one  and  thirty 
states  into  a  great  government.  The  wool  grows  on 
the  back  of  the  wild  sheep  at  Thibet,  while  she  takes 
no  thought  for  raiment.  The  housekeeping  of  the 
sheep  family,  and  the  government  of  the  sheep  flock,  is 
all  provided  for,  whilst  they  take  no  thought  for  the 
morrow.  But  God  gives  man  the  risky  privilege  of 
managing  these  things  to  a  great  degree  for  himself. 
Hence  while  the  beavers  at  the  Lake  of  the  Woods  build 
just  as  their  first  ancestor,  the  protoplast  and  old 
Adam  of  beavers,  built  a  hundred  thousand  years  ago, 
while  the  wild  sheep  of  Thibet  is  dressed  just  like  the 
primitive  ewe  of  the  sheep  kind,  and  manages  her  fam- 
ily in  the  same  way,  while  the  governor  of  the  flock  has 
known  no  change, —  man  alters  his  house,  his  dress,  his 
domestic  economy,  his  government,  and  all  things, 

"From  seeming  evil  still  educing  good, 
And  better  thence  again,  and  better  still. 
In  infinite  progression." 

The  change  of  ideas  comes  first.  They  are  the  seeds  of 
actions  and  institutions  in  time  to  come.  Our  republi- 
can government,  its  virtues,  its  vices,  our  churches, 
our  families, —  they  are  the  outside  of  ideas  which 
our  fathers  set  a-going,  a  hundred,  or  a  thousand,  or 
ten  thousand  years  ago.  To-day,  what  new  ideas  there 
are  coming  into  life, —  John  the  Baptists  crying  in 
the  wilderness,  forerunners  of  the  Messiah,  promising 
the  kingdom  of  God !  Like  the  old  forerunner,  they 
are  often  said  to  have  a  devil,  nay,  to  be  devils,  though 
some  day  whole  Jerusalems  will  gird  up  their  loins 
and  go  out  to  meet  them. 


EDUCATION  225 

Men  do  not  see  the  power  of  an  idea.  "  It  is  only 
an  opinion,  nothing  but  a  thought,"  say  we ;  "  let  it 
alone !  "  Wait  till  the  opinion  becomes  the  thought  of 
a  nation,  till  the  idea  is  an  act,  as  it  will  be,  and  then 
who  shall  stand  against  it,  when  it  presses  forward  like 
the  tide  of  the  Atlantic  sea?  As  you  look  carefully, 
every  thing  resolves  itself  back  into  an  idea ;  the  solid 
fixtures  of  the  world, —  how  swiftly  they  return  to 
their  primitive  form,  and,  as  you  look  at  them,  melt 
away  into  a  thought.  A  man  builds  his  ship  out  of 
ideas,  and  by  these  sails  over  the  sea,  fronting  the 
storm.  Fulton's  idea  condensed  all  the  two  and  thirty 
winds  into  the  boiler  of  his  boat.  A  single  man  at 
Washington,  sitting  at  a  topographical  bureau,  has 
by  his  thought  shortened  the  average  voyage  from 
New  York  to  the  equator  twelve  days, —  for  a  thought 
is  a  short  way  of  doing  a  long  thing.  A  few  years 
ago  the  town  of  Lawrence  was  nothing  but  clay  in 
the  ground,  timber  in  the  woods,  water  in  the  Merri- 
mack, and  a  thought  in  a  Boston  merchant's  head.  A 
mill  is  a  private  opinion  made  public  in  matter;  a 
republic  an  idea  worked  out  into  men.  The  faulty 
thought  appears  in  the  crazy  wheels  of  the  loom, 
which  snaps  the  thread,  or  in  the  perverse  institution 
of  the  State,  which  confounds  the  welfare  of  men. 
Pope  Gregory  the  Seventh  has  been  dead  almost  eight 
hundred  years,  and  at  Avignon  or  elsewhere  his  pow- 
erful dust  has  crumbled,  dissolved,  and  disappeared, 
with  other  dust ;  but  his  dead  hand,  with  a  thought  in 
it,  still  keeps  every  Catholic  priest  in  the  wide  world 
from  wedlock.  The  whim  of  some  Oriental  fanatic, 
who  has  been  dead  these  three  thousand  years,  grates 
the  windows  of  half  a  million  nuns  in  Christian  Eu- 
rope. The  laws  of  nations  are  only  thoughts,  better 
XI— 15 


226   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

or  worse ;  the  theologies  of  the  world  are  only  opinions 
condensed.  Judaism,  Heathenism,  Christianity,  is 
each  an  idea.  JNIonarchy,  aristocracy,  or  democracy, 
is  only  a  thought,  carried  into  an  act ;  and  as  the 
thought,  so  the  thing.  Speculative  opinions,  are 
they.f^  So  men  say.  Look  again!  —  the  opinion  is 
an  institution,  to  bless  or  curse  mankind. 

There  is  a  wide  difference  in  the  power  of  men  to  de- 
vise ideas,  false  or  true.  Here  is  a  woman  who  cannot 
lift  the  wicker  cradle  in  which  her  puny  baby  cries ; 
here  is  a  stout  man  who  can  hoist  up  six  or  seven  hun- 
dred pounds  weight,  carry  it  a  hundred  yards  or  so, 
and  set  it  down,  his  knees  not  smiting  each  other  mean- 
while. Now  there  is  a  greater  difference  between  the 
speculative  power  of  men  than  between  that  maternal 
butterfly  and  the  burly  truckman.  One  man  can  only 
carry  a  little  bowl  of  thin,  sour  opinions,  superstition 
and  water,  which  some  priestly  monk  mixed  to  con- 
found and  intoxicate  the  world  a  thousand  years  ago. 
Here  is  another  who  can  take  on  his  head  a  whole 
world  of  ideas,  gathered  from  the  past,  the  present, 
and  the  future,  received  into  his  inspired  brain  from 
the  great  God,  and  he  moves  in  consequence  with  such 
momentum  that  he  goes  through  Church  and  State, 
and  death  cannot  stop  him, —  but  Moses,  Confucius, 
Socrates,  and  Jesus  ran  by  their  tombstones  several 
thousand  years,  nor  will  they  stop  for  some  thousands 
of  years  to  come ;  and  you  and  I  catch  hold  of  their 
wide-spread  skirts,  or  are  sucked  in  with  the  whirl- 
wind of  their  sweeping  rush,  and  so  are  ourselves  car- 
ried forward  through  Church  and  State.  There  are 
great  bad  men  whose  large  speculative  power  devises 
mistakes  by  accident,  or  lies  by  whim, —  ideas  which 
represent  selfishness,  injustice,  hate,  impiety,  practical 


EDUCATION  227 

atheism.  They  sow  the  world  with  wickedness,  they 
beget  drunkards,  they  spawn  tyrants,  they  are  authors 
of  widespread  misery  to  mankind.  Then  there  are 
great  good  men,  whose  ideas  represent  the  natural 
benevolence  of  our  humanity,  justice,  love,  piety. 
What  different  results  come  from  the  thought  of  a 
Jesus,  or  the  thought  of  a  Nero !  Knowledge  is  al- 
ways power  for  good  or  ill,  because  it  gives  the  man 
the  ability  to  do  things  short.  Now  when  a  man  of 
ideas  is  a  good  man,  and  uses  his  great  power  for  a 
noble  purpose,  then  he  carries  out  the  great  idea  of 
God ;  when  he  is  a  bad  man,  then  he  is  the  greatest 
curse  to  the  world. 

Now  see  the  practical  influence  of  ideas ;  first  of 
false  ideas.  Here  is  a  young  man  who  thinks  the 
chief  end  of  life  is  enjoyment,  mere  animal  pleasure. 
That  is  his  idea  of  life.  He  thinks  there  is  no  higher 
law  of  God,  above  the  transient  instinct  for  selfish, 
sensuous  delight,  no  law  of  God  above  his  private 
passion.  See  how  his  thought  becomes  a  thing.  Wine, 
horses,  cards,  dice,  indecent  romances,  licentious  pic- 
tures, women  debauched  and  debauching,  and  men 
yet  more  debauched,  and  debauching  yet  worse, —  these 
are  his  companions,  the  tools  of  his  work.  By  and  by 
there  will  be  a  character,  selfish,  mean,  contemptible, 
and  a  loathy  body,  that  disease  is  fast  tearing  to 
pieces.  That  will  be  the  publication  of  his  idea. 
On  his  tombstone  you  might  write,  "  Here  continueth 
to  rot,"  &c. 

Here  is  a  man  not  young,  who  thinks  this  life  is  the 
time  to  get  money,  honor,  social  distinction,  and  no 
more ;  to  get  them,  no  matter  how.  That  is  his  idea. 
See  what  his  life  is,  how  it  ends.  Late  in  his  existence, 
I  shall  not  call  it  life,  he  has  a  warm  house,  a  cold 


228   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

heart,  a  full  purse,  an  empty  soul,  a  deal  of  respect 
and  honor;  but  a  character  contemptible  and  almost 
worthless.  He  leaves  a  great  estate  in  house  and 
stocks,  a  great  reputation  in  the  newspapers  and  the 
meeting-house,  and  he  takes  into  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  a  little,  mean,  dastardly,  and  sneaking  soul,  so 
small  that  it  seems  hardly  worth  taking  across  the 
grave  and  paying  the  toll  on  at  Death's  door.  And 
so  he  passes  away,  leaving  the  fortune  of  a  million- 
aire, and  a  character  which  a  beggar  would  be  ashamed 
to  have  dropped  as  a  pittance  into  his  alms-basket. 
The  debauchee  is  only  an  idea  in  the  flesh,  the  hunker 
is  his  own  opinion  published  in  his  existence. 

Here  is  an  idea  that  God  made  woman  for  man's  con- 
venience, not  a  person,  but  a  thing  to  serve  a  person,  a 
pin  for  man  to  hang  his  garment  on ;  that  she  is  in- 
ferior to  man  in  the  substance  of  her  nature,  in  the 
purpose  of  her  life.  See  what  comes  of  it.  The  sav- 
age makes  woman  his  slave ;  the  civilized  man  bars  her 
from  business,  education,  political  rights.  Out  of  that 
idea  has  come  the  enforced  celibacy  of  pagans  and 
Christians,  the  enforced  marriage  of  lust.  The  harems 
of  King  Solomon,  of  Louis  the  Fifteenth,  and  of 
Brigham  Young,  are  all  founded  on  that  thought.  It 
sets  the  Circassian  girls  for  sale  in  the  market  of  Con- 
stantinople ;  it  puts  English,  French,  and  American 
girls  for  hire,  worse  than  for  sale,  in  the  shambles 
of  Paris,  London  and  Boston.  The  idea  was  a  thought 
in  the  dull  head  of  the  savage,  in  the  dark  mind  of 
some  Hebrew  Jew  three  thousand  years  ago ;  it  is  a 
fact  in  the  saloons  of  Solomon,  Mahomet,  Louis  the 
Fifteenth,  and  in  the  dens  and  cellars  of  Ann  Street  in 
Boston,  or  the  Five  Points  of  New  York.  You  meet 
it    results  in  the  alms-house  and  the  house  of  correc- 


EDUCATION  229 

tion.  Woman  is  the  tool  of  man's  selfishness,  and  he 
may  do  what  he  will  with  the  staff  which  he  carries 
in  his  hand ;  —  that  is  the  thought.  See  in  what 
ghastly  letters  it  is  writ  in  all  the  great  cities  of  the 
world. 

Here  is  another  idea,  that  men  are  not  equal  in  the 
substance  of  human  nature,  and  the  rights  consequent 
thereon ;  but  a  man's  substantive  rights,  ecclesiastical, 
political,  social,  domestic,  individual,  are  proportioned 
to  his  accidental  power,  and  so  the  strong  may  use  the 
weak  for  his  interest,  and  against  theirs.  It  is  noth- 
ing but  a  thought, —  how  harmless  it  seems ;  but  when 
it  has  become  a  thing,  then  what  is  it?  All  the  selfish 
aristocracies  in  the  world  have  grown  out  of  it.  The 
mill-owners  in  Saxony,  Silesia,  and  Belgium,  oppress 
their  poor  and  ignorant  serfs  in  factories,  under  this 
idea;  in  England  it  gives  the  land  of  sixteen  million 
men  to  twenty-five  thousand  aristocrats ;  and  in  Amer- 
ica it  keeps  three  and  a  half  million  men  in  bondage, 
and  fills  the  sails  of  all  the  slave-trading  ships  upon 
the  ocean.  It  is  only  an  idea,  one  end  of  it ;  the  other 
spreads  out  into  all  the  oppression  which  there  is  in  the 
wide  world. 

Here  is  another  thought  yet  ghastlier ;  —  that  God 
is  an  ugly  God,  mighty  and  wise,  but  not  just  and  lov- 
ing; that  he  hates  the  sinner,  and  loves  only  a  few 
mean  bigots  who  crouch  down  and  debase  their  little 
souls  in  the  dust,  in  the  dear  name  of  God.  The 
function  of  religion  is  to  appease  the  wrath  of  God, 
to  intercede  with  Him  that  He  may  spare  some  one  of 
us.  See  what  this  idea  comes  to.  In  the  individual 
man  it  comes  to  fear  and  trembling.  He  is  afraid  to 
think  lest  he  offend  God ;  reason  is  carnal,  belief  spir- 
itual; thought  is  only  human,  faith  is  divine.      So  the 


230      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

man  does  not  dare  to  be  wise,  lest  he  enrage  his  God; 
he  does  not  dare  trust  his  conscience,  nor  his  affections, 
nor  his  own  great,  natural,  religious  soul,  lest  God 
who  made  man  and  all  these  powers  should  be  angry 
because  he  used  them  as  they  were  made.  So  supersti- 
tion comes  in  the  place  of  manly  life,  fear  in  the 
place  of  love,  and  the  priest  pinches  a  man's 
forehead  from  its  native  ampleness  into  nothing 
but  the  forehead  of  a  beast.  In  the  hands  of  the 
priest  this  idea  is  the  horridest  tool  which  any  tyrant 
ever  wrought  out  or  wrought  with.  He  paints  his 
grim  and  devilish  conception  of  God  on  the  window 
of  the  medieval  church,  and  the  people  cannot  look 
up  at  the  light  but  this  horrid  phantom  stands  there 
between  them  and  the  sun.  It  is  only  an  idea,  but 
it  built  the  Inquisition, —  Italian,  Spanish,  East  In- 
dian, Mexican,  South  American ;  it  hung  Mary  Dyer 
on  Boston  Common;  it  burnt  John  Rogers  at  Smith- 
field  ;  it  has  been  the  parent  of  persecution  since  the 
world  began.  It  is  only  a  thought  at  first ;  it  spreads 
into  misery,  it  ends  in  the  notion  of  eternal  torment, 
it  makes  a  hell  on  earth.  Religion  is  the  master  ele- 
ment in  man ;  it  is  meant  to  rule.  Ideas  of  religious 
matters  are  the  most  powerful  ideas  in  the  world ; 
their  influence  is  the  widest  in  its  spread,  the  deepest 
in  its  intensity ;  and  if  they  are  false,  then  they  work 
the  most  hideous  woe,  and  every  other  false  thing 
stands  behind  them  as  its  castle  and  fortress. 

But  true  ideas  are  more  powerful  than  false.  The 
forces  of  the  material  world  and  the  purposes  of  God 
are  on  their  side ;  eternity  is  their  time  of  triumph. 

Here  is  a  young  man  who  has  the  idea  that  it  is  his 
duty  to  be  a  man,  a  whole  man,  true  to  all  his  nature, 


EDUCATION  231 

his  body  co-ordinate  with  his  spirit,  that  mastered  by 
its  own  higher  powers.  It  is  only  a  thought  in  that 
young  man's  head,  but  what  a  hfe  will  come  out  of  it. 
He  will  have  the  natural  and  legitimate  delights  of 
the  bod}',  joys  that  not  only  bless  but  refine  and  ele- 
vate. He  will  seek  for  such  riches,  such  respect,  power, 
station,  honor,  as  he  thinks  he  needs,  will  seek  them  by 
legitimate  ways.  He  w^ill  get  them,  or  fail  thereof; 
and  either  way  he  will  be  a  noble  man  ;  not  living  to 
eat  and  drink,  but  eating  and  drinking  to  live.  His 
wealth  will  be  a  means  of  life,  not  life's  end;  a  help  to 
character,  not  a  substitute  for  it.  Is  he  a  servant, — 
he  will  be  a  man  serving,  faithful  to  every  duty,  writ- 
ing out  in  his  humblest,  poorest  work,  the  integrity  of 
his  own  consciousness.  Is  he  rich,  able-minded, —  he 
will  use  every  faculty  for  its  legitimate  purpose,  and 
by  his  culture,  his  office,  his  fortune,  he  will  only 
lengthen  out  his  native  arm  that  he  may  work  in  a 
broader  field  and  do  more  good. 

Out  of  this  idea  what  beautiful  lives  come  forth.  It 
makes  a  good  citizen,  father,  mother,  husband,  wife, 
sister,  aunt,  friend.  O  young  man !  O  young  woman ! 
there  are  few  things  I  could  wish  you  to  inherit  so  fair 
as  this  to  start  with  in  life.  If  your  mother  gave  you 
this,  this  only,  count  yourself  well-bom,  ay,  rich,  and 
translate  your  mother's  beatitude  into  your  own  con- 
scious act.  That  bud, —  what  a  youth  it  will  blossom 
into !  What  a  fruit  it  will  mature  into  in  the  autumn 
of  your  life ! 

Here  is  another  true  idea, —  that  it  is  the  function 
of  the  strong  to  help  the  weak.  What  a  world  of 
good  will  come  of  it ;  nay,  has  already  come !  The 
strong-minded  man  must  be  the  teacher  of  the  weak, 
the  well-mannered  set  lessons  to  the  ill-bred,  the  man 


232   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

of  high  station  use  his  position  for  all  the  rest,  and 
most  of  all  for  whoso  needs  it  most.  The  strong 
classes  must  help  the  weak,  the  rich  aid  the  poor,  not 
by  charity  so  much  as  justice;  helping  them  to  start 
as  the  thriving  start,  and  to  gain  riches  for  them- 
selves by  honest  industry,  not  by  the  pecuniary  charity 
of  another.  The  educated  must  help  the  ignorant,  the 
self-respectful  the  abandoned,  the  civilized  the  savage, 
the  religious  those  with  no  religion,  not  barely  call 
then>  pagans,  infidels,  or  atheists.  The  free  must  help 
the  bound. 

That  idea  is  older  than  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  but  it 
shows  in  his  great  life  like  fires  at  night;  and  that 
large  human  glory  which  bums  around  his  brow,  so 
that  we  see  him  two  thousand  years  off,  came  out  of 
this  thought, — "  The  Son  of  Man  has  come  to  save 
that  which  is  lost."  What  a  good  work  it  does  now ! 
In  Catholic  countries  it  builds  hospitals,  founds  col- 
leges, establishes  sisterhoods  of  charity,  sends  mission- 
aries all  over  the  world.  In  Protestant  lands  it  founds 
great,  noble,  political  and  social  institutions  not  less, 
schools  for  the  ignorant  and  the  poor,  asylums  for  the 
old,  the  orphan,  the  sick.  In  New  England  it  offers 
the  free  school  to  everybody,  and  furnishes  the  alms- 
house, wherein  men  shall  be  protected  against  starva- 
tion, or  perishing  by  cold ;  it  goes  further,  and  teaches 
the  blind  to  see,  the  deaf  to  hear,  the  dumb  to  speak, 
the  crazy  to  be  calm,  yea,  the  drunkard  to  be  sober, 
the  criminal  to  mend,  and  seeks  to  be  mind  even  to  the 
fool.  There  are  a  few  men  who  seek  to  be  freedom 
to  the  slave,  spite  of  the  Church,  spite  of  the  State. 
Look  about  you  in  the  humane  institutions  of  Massa- 
chusetts and  New  England,  from  the  free  schools  to 
the  private  charity  that  would  snatch  women  from  the 


EDUCATION  233 

worst  fate  that  can  befall  them,  and  see  the  influence  of 
an  idea.  I  am  proud  of  this  nineteenth  century.  It  is 
a  great  triumph  of  mankind.  I  love  to  think  of  the 
wealth  it  has  created,  the  roads  of  earth,  wood,  stone, 
iron,  which  it  has  built,  the  ships,  the  shops,  the  mills, 
the  thousandfold  machinery  whereby  we  soothe  and 
cheer  and  comfort  the  bodies  of  the  world.  But  the 
fairest  work  of  this  nineteenth  century  is  its  philan- 
thropy. I  am  far  more  proud  of  that.  From  the 
sixth  to  the  sixteenth  century,  what  was  called  the 
Christian  Church  built  cathedrals  and  monasteries, — 
the  thought  of  a  half  savage  people  done  into  stone, 
great  prayers  in  marble,  painted  glass  and  music.  But 
the  idea  of  justice  now  is  getting  incarnated  into 
men,  and  I  like  best  that  architecture  which  builds  up 
living  stones,  quarried  even  in  the  street  and  the  jail. 
I  am  thankful  for  the  medieval  temple  of  stone,  but 
more  thankful  for  the  effort  in  our  time  to  incarnate 
the  thought  of  God,  and  make  His  word  our  flesh. 

Here  is  one  idea  more:  God  is  infinite  in  power,  wis- 
dom, justice,  love,  and  holiness.  Religion  is  the 
service  of  God  by  the  normal  use,  development,  and  en- 
joyment of  every  limb  of  the  body,  every  faculty  of 
the  spirit,  every  power  we  are  born  to  or  have  ac- 
quired. That  is  the  greatest  idea  which  tenants  any 
mortal  mind.  Alas,  it  is  only  a  thought  as  yet !  As 
yet  there  is  no  nation,  no  sect,  no  community,  no 
single  church  even,  that  has  taken  the  idea,  and  sought 
to  make  the  thought  a  thing.  One  day  it  will  be  the 
thought  of  a  church,  then  of  a  circle  of  churches, 
then  of  a  nation,  at  last  of  mankind, —  and,  oh,  what 
a  world  is  to  blossom  out  of  this  great  thought ! 

How  poor  it  seems  to  get  good  patterns  for  shoes, 
for  coats,  desks,  carpets,  houses,  railroads,  ships,  and 


234   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

yet  not  have  good  ideas  for  noble  Imman  life, —  to 
have  a  bonnet  which  represents  more  artistic  ideas  in 
the  milliner  than  human  ideas  in  the  wearer.  It  is  a 
little  mortifying  to  think  how  many  good  mechanics, 
merchants,  lawyers,  doctors,  there  are,  how  few  good 
men.  But  that  is  not  first  which  is  spiritual;  after 
the  bud  the  blossom,  after  the  blossom  the  fruit.  All 
this  mere  material  work  is  to  serve  as  basis,  whereon 
mankind  is  to  build  up  character.  Noble  things  are 
the  John  the  Baptists  which  run  before  great  Mes- 
sianic thoughts  which  you  and  I  are  to  build  into 
some  kingdom  of  God  here  on  earth.  A  great  idea 
will  become  a  great  many  things.  A  true  one  will 
become  beautiful  institutions,  noble  women,  and  noble 
men.  One  great  truth  Jesus  of  Nazareth  broke  into 
eight  fair  Beatitudes,  that  smaller  men  might  the  better 
carry  it.  What  wonders  they  have  wrought,  and  are 
working  still!  What  great  ideas  are  now  starting  in 
the  world !  Great  truths  —  nothing  can  stop  them  ; 
they  have  the  momentum  of  the  universe,  for  the  In- 
finite God  is  behind  them  and  pushes  them  on !  Think 
you  that  armies  of  soldiers,  congresses  of  politicians, 
crowds  of  debauchees,  of  hunkers,  practical  atheists, 
can  ever  stop  a  single  thought  of  God.^*  Hold  up 
your  hand  against  the  lightning,  and  stop  a  thunder- 
bolt !  you  shall  do  it  sooner  than  that.  Not  a  truth 
can  perish.  As  I  think  of  the  great  ideas  now  stirring 
amongst  men,  I  feel  as  in  a  florist's  shop  when  I  look 
on  buds,  scions,  and  seeds  that  are  designed  for  the 
gardens  and  farms  of  men.  I  look  forward  a  few 
years, —  there  are  blossoms,  there  is  fruit,  abundance, 
come  out  of  these.  So  out  of  this  great  idea  that 
God  is  Infinite  Power,  Wisdom,  Justice,  Love,  and 
Holiness,  that  human  religion  is  the  service  of  Him 


EDUCATION  235 

by  the  normal  use,  development,  and  enjoyment  of 
every  limb  of  this  consecrated  body,  with  every  fac- 
ulty of  this  enchanting  spirit,  with  every  power  we 
have  earned  or  inherited, —  I  see  what  men,  what  fam- 
ilies, what  churches,  what  towns,  states,  nations,  and 
what  a  world  shall  in  due  time  come.  Ay,  truth  is 
strongest,  and  prevails  over  all ! 

THE  USE  OF  BEAUTY 

The  spectacle  of  loveliness  over  our  head,  and  under 
our  feet,  and  all  around  us  in  the  world,  is  of  more 
usefulness  to  us  than  we  know.  I  never  knew  a 
farmer,  however  rough,  who  did  not  take  delight  in 
the  beauty  of  his  waving  field  of  wheat,  apart  from  its 
use,  who  did  not  see  loveliness  in  the  Indian  com,  from 
the  first  moment  its  tender  spike  broke  through  the 
sod,  to  the  last  moment  when  its  yellow  ear  hung  over 
and  down,  naturally  protected  against  the  inclemency 
of  winter.  The  clown  of  the  country  rejoices  in  his 
father's  oxen  and  sheep.  We  do  not  see  the  use  of 
this  at  first ;  but  when  the  farmer's  boy  lies  awake 
of  autumn  nights,  to  hear  the  ripe  apple  plump  to 
the  ground  through  the  moonlight,  when  the  farmer's 
daughter  wakes  before  dawn  to  listen  to  the  song  of 
earliest  birds,  and  see  the  clear  glitter  of  the  morning 
star,  and  in  those  things  finds  a  compensation  for  many 
a  hardship  and  sorrow,  and  gets  an  impulse  to  sustain 
her  life  amid  the  toil  of  the  dairy  and  kitchen, —  then 
you  see  the  high  use  of  this  material  beauty  wherewith 
God  environs  us  round,  in  the  heavens  over  our  head, 
and  in  the  earth  under  our  feet.  When  the  Scotch 
peasant  at  his  work  learns  such  a  lesson  from  the  little 
daisy  which  he  turns  up  with  his  ploughshare, — "  Wee, 
modest   flower," —  you   see   that    God    was    not    asleep 


236   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

when  He  created  all  this  beauty  and  put  it  round  us ; 
for  the  farmer's  daughter,  and  son,  and  Burns  the 
poet,  only  tell  what  thousands  know,  but  cannot  speak, 
and  what  millions  feel,  but  do  not  know,  and  still  less 
can  speak. 

THE   ELEVATING   INFLUENCE    OF   BEAUTY 

As  the  world  of  art  comes  out  of  man's  love  of  ma- 
terial beauty,  so  the  world  of  science  comes  from  man's 
delight  in  the  ideal  intellectual  beauty  of  related 
things ;  and  then  the  worlds  of  art  and  science, —  how 
much  they  do  to  elevate  man  from  the  gross  material 
condition  into  which  this  savage  child  was  born.  It 
is  for  this  purpose  that  God  sows  the  world  with  dew- 
drops  in  May  and  June,  and  spangles  heaven  all  over 
with  stars  that  burn  forever  in  their  immortal  beauty. 
The  use  of  things  causes  man  first  to  fear,  and  drives 
him.  Then  beauty  charms  his  eye  to  love,  delight, 
and  trust.  As  fathers  and  mothers  please  their  chil- 
dren with  picture-books,  and  teach  the  A  B  C  on  blocks 
of  yellow  wood,  to  fix  the  baby  eye,  and  as  these  chil- 
dren find  wisdom  whilst  looking  only  for  delight,  so 
the  dear  Father  leads  all  his  human  family  upwards 
and  on,  delighting  us  with  the  shape  of  an  apple,  the 
color  of  a  rose,  or  the  mystery  of  a  star,  or  the  romance 
of  the  new  moon,  till  we  learn  art  and  science  both,  and 
we  learn  the  commandments  while  we  are  looking  at 
the  pictures  in  this  great  primer  of  the  Lord. 

MORAL  EDUCATION 

How  many  a  thief  might  have  been  an  honest  me- 
chanic, doctor,  lawyer,  minister,  had  some  honest  man 
taken  a  little  charge  of  him  in  his  boyhood ;  how  many 
a  girl,  predestined  by  her  circumstances  to  the  vilest 


EDUCATION  237 

degradation,  would  have  been  saved  by  a  kindly  word 
and  the  putting  into  a  good  wholesome  family !  Al- 
ready we  begin  to  take  steps  that  way.  Adult  schools 
in  our  great  cities  are  the  most  beautiful  pieces  of 
Christianit}^  that  I  have  yet  seen  in  what  is  called  a 
Christian  world.  There  is  no  charity  like  education. 
It  must,  however,  be  moral  as  well  as  intellectual. 

SELF-IGNORANCE 

It  often  happens  that  men  are  not  very  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  best  things  in  them,  they  see  them 
so  seldom.  We  live  with  our  human  nature  as  the 
Mexicans  lived  in  California,  not  knowing  the  un- 
summed  gold  which  slept  unseen,  waiting  to  be  brought 
to  light.  A  young  fellow  whom  I  knew,  once  did  a 
brave  thing,  which  brought  in  its  train  a  deal  of  self- 
denial.  He  did  not  mean  to  do  it;  it  did  itself,  and 
he  was  astonished.  "  How  came  I  to  do  such  a 
thing?  "  quoth  he  to  himself,  when  he  got  home  and 
sat  down  alone  with  his  God  and  the  darkness.  And 
so  he  looked  to  see  whence  came  that  rath  flower,  un- 
expectedly springing  up  in  its  fragrant  beauty,  and 
he  found  there  was  a  whole  bank  of  just  such  violets, 
which  he  had  not  known  before,  enough  to  sweeten  all 
the  winds  of  heaven.  It  is  so  with  us  all.  So  old 
stories  tell  that  Grecian  Narcissus  went  about  with 
rude  swains  in  Attica,  and  thought  himself  but  one 
of  them, —  ill-mannered  and  boisterous,  and  not  treat- 
ing well  the  swine  which  he  fed, —  till  one  day  by 
accident  he  saw  in  the  water  a  face  as  beautiful  as 
Aphrodite  and  Phoebus  Apollo  both  united,  and  was 
astonished  to  find  it  was  his  own,  and  that  he  too 
belonged  to  the  handsome  kindred  of  the  gods.  From 
that  day  forth  Narcissus  went  another  man,  and  drove 


238   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

his  swine  a-field  as  if  he  were  himself  a  god,  scorning 
all  unhandsome  and  all  ungodly  conduct.  Thus  it 
is  with  all  men,  not  knowing  what  manner  of  spirit 
we  are  of,  till  accident,  or  some  great  man,  or  some 
great  event,  lets  us  into  our  own  secret,  and  we  are 
introduced  to  ourselves. 


VI 

HUMAN  INSTITUTIONS  AND  NATIONAL 
LIFE 

THE  COMPLETE  ORGANIZATION  OF  SOCIETY 

The  Indian  went  poor  and  cold.  There  was  the 
Merrimac  clapping  its  hands  and  saying,  "  I  will  spin 
for  you  as  soon  as  you  are  ready  to  have  me."  And 
when  men  were  wise  enough  to  organize  its  powers, 
it  commenced  spinning  and  weaving  for  them ;  and 
when  we  are  wise  enough  to  organize  men  as  well 
as  we  now  organize  matter,  then  the  Napoleons  and 
Caesars,  the  great  rivers  of  humanity,  will  not  be  for- 
ever overflowing  their  banks,  raging  and  tearing  and 
committing  destruction,  but  spinning  and  weaving 
for  us  after  their  great  sort, —  a  harness  by  which 
you  and  I  can  work  together  and  achieve  a  great  good, 
the  man  of  genius  for  himself  and  society,  and  society 
for  itself  and  the  man  of  genius  at  the  same  time. 
The  greatest  thing  which  any  man  can  ask  of  God  is 
an  opportunity  to  use  the  gift  he  has.  A  complete 
organization  of  society  would  give  every  man  an  op- 
portunity to  use  his  gift. 

Work  is  the  only  universal  currency  which  God 
accepts.  A  nation's  welfare  will  depend  on  its  ability 
to  master  the  world,  that  on  its  power  of  work,  that 
on  its  power  of  thought.  The  wealth  of  New  Eng- 
land runs  out  of  the  school-houses  of  New  England. 

THE  IDEA  OF  A  REAL  CHURCH 

The  aim  of  a  real  church  must  be,  first,  to  promote 
the  sentiment  of  religion, —  religion  as  an  instinctive 

239 


240      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

feeling  of  dependence  upon  God,  obligation  trust  in 
God,  love  of  God;  a  sense  of  ultimate  dependence  on 
His  providence,  of  unavoidable  obligation  to  keep  His 
law  of  nature,  of  absolute  trust  in  the  infinite  fatherly 
and  motherly  providence  of  God,  and  of  complete  and 
perfect  love  of  Him  which  shall  cast  out  every  fear  for 
the  present  and  the  future.  It  is  also  to  promote  the 
idea  of  religion,  to  develop  it  as  a  conscious  thought, 
so  that  what  at  first  is  a  fact  of  mere  instinct  shall 
presently  become  an  ideal  of  self -consciousness ;  and 
that  man  shall  be  self-conscious  of  this  unavoidable 
dependence,  this  obligation,  this  absolute  trust,  and 
this  complete  and  perfect  love.  It  is  likewise  to  pro- 
mote the  application  of  this  form  of  religion,  with  this 
sentiment  and  this  idea,  to  life,  and  all  departments 
thereof,  the  personal,  the  domestic,  the  social,  the  na- 
tional, and  the  universal  human  form  of  life. 

That,  I  take  it,  is  the  end  for  which  a  church  is  to 
be  organized;  a  church,  I  mean,  which  believes  in  the 
infinite  perfection  of  God.  It  is  to  accomplish  this  to 
the  extent  of  its  power,  to  desire  to  do  it  universally, 
—  that  is,  for  every  man,  and  perfectly  for  each  man. 
It  is  to  help  every  man  in  the  world  to  the  attainment 
of  this  form  of  religious  development  and  religious 
delight,  aiming  to  do  it  for  all  who  are  within  its  reach, 
being  limited  only  by  its  power.  That  is  the  end  for 
which  the  church  of  absolute  religion  is  to  strive.  It 
is  not  to  attempt  to  change  the  will  of  God,  not  to 
affect  God  towards  man,  but  to  affect  man  towards 
God. 

The  means  to  this  end  are  very  simple;  to  get  men 
of  great  religious  genius,  talent,  or  experience,  and 
set  them  to  teach  that  part  of  religion  which  they 
know    either  by  the  intuition  of  their  genius,  by  the 


NATIONAL  LIFE  241 

toil  of  their  reflection,  or  by  the  discipline  of  their 
life,  and  so  give  others  opportunity  to  listen.  When 
there  is  such  teaching  as  that,  there  will  always  be 
listening  enough.  When  the  father  sends  his  son  to 
have  his  com  ground,  it  is  not  necessary  to  tell  the 
boy  to  gather  the  lilies  out  of  the  pond ;  he  will  do 
that  of  his  own  accord.  Rivers  of  hearers  always  run 
down  into  the  ocean  of  Paul's  and  Jesus's  piety.  It 
was  so  on  Mount  Tabor,  and  it  is  so  in  London,  Paris, 
Vienna,  everywhere  that  an  earnest  man  lifts  up  an 
earnest  and  manly  voice. 

Then  for  the  concrete  application  of  these  Ideas  to 
life,  a  very  simple  organization  is  easily  made ;  now 
to  spread  the  Ideas,  now  to  reform  an  evil,  then  to 
dispense  charity,  and  the  like.  In  God's  world  there 
is  always  enough  for  each,  too  much  of  naught. 
Scattered  about  In  society  there  are  always  men  of 
religious  genius,  with  a  telescopic  heart  for  religious 
sentiments,  a  telescopic  mind  for  religious  Ideas,  In 
advance  of  mankind.  These  are  the  natural  teachers, 
who  preach  with  authority,  not  as  scribes  and  Phari- 
sees, appealing  to  another  authority.  The  church  Is 
their  place,  the  pulpit  their  joy  and  throne.  These 
men  of  genius  for  religion  there  are.  Then  there 
are  men  of  large  talent  for  religion,  and  others  with 
large  experience  of  the  discipline  of  life.  These  w^Ill 
be  special  teachers  of  religion,  one  having  a  special 
talent  for  one  thing,  and  another  for  another.  A 
particular  church  Is  fortunate  If  it  can  get  an  eminent 
man  of  religion  for  Its  teacher,  a  man  of  genius,  great 
character,  great  conduct,  great  life.  It  Is  like  getting 
a  great  lake  to  flow  through  a  thousand  pipes.  Into 
the  streets  and  lanes  of  a  great  city,  the  mountain 
water  bubbling  up  in  the  haunts  of  filth  and  disease. 
XT— 16 


242   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

Of  what  inestimable  value  is  a  man  who  can  light  the 
fire  of  piety  in  a  thousand  or  a  million  hearts,  and  set 
each  one  of  these  as  a  candle  lit  in  the  dark  to  shine 
all  about  him.  You  see  what  relation  such  a  man 
bears  to  the  business,  politics,  science,  literature, 
morals,  and  manners  of  his  age.  He  will  act  as  a 
critic,  to  judge  others  by  his  idea ;  as  a  creator,  to  make 
better  politics,  juster  business,  to  apply  humanity  to 
the  perishing  classes  of  men,  to  apply  piety  to  the 
science,  letters,  morals,  and  manners  of  his  age.  If 
it  be  possible,  such  a  man  ought  to  be  of  the  foremost 
intellect.  It  is  a  disgrace  to  our  times  that  while 
strong  men,  of  large  ability,  go  in  whole  troops  to  the 
bar,  the  senate,  and  the  market,  it  is  chiefly  little  men 
who  sneak  into  the  pulpit,  and  put  on  the  lion's  skin 
of  a  prophet,  with  nothing  to  say,  where  presently 
there  is  no  one  to  listen.  You  see  the  effect  of  this 
all  over  the  land.  The  religious  teacher  ought  to  be 
a  man  of  foremost  intellect  and  culture,  as  well  as 
piety ;  but  foremost  as  he  may  be,  he  must  go  back 
and  look  after  the  very  hindmost  of  men,  after  the 
pauper,  the  idiot,  the  drunkard,  and  the  felon,  after 
men  whose  iniquity  pauperizes  the  world,  and  makes 
felons  of  men.  Amid  artificial  distinctions,  he  is  to 
know  no  man  as  rich  or  poor,  high  or  low,  saint  or 
sinner;  he  is  to  cheer  the  penitent,  to  seek  and  save 
that  which  is  lost.  This  is  the  highest  function  of 
the  highest  man, —  to  take  the  inspiration  which  he 
gets  from  God,  and  scatter  it  broadcast  over  the 
world,  and  out  of  his  own  gi'eat  bosom  to  feed  the 
hungry  masses  of  men.  The  greatest  praise  of  a 
church  of  this  character  would  be  that  it  gathered 
together  the  outcast,  the  hated  and  hunted,  that  it  was 
the  church  where  publicans  and  harlots  found  the  doors 


NATIONAL  LIFE  243 

wide  open,  and  religion  flowing  in  a  great  stream  to 
them ;  not  the  church  merelj^  of  decorous  and  orderly- 
men  ;  for  the  church  in  our  time,  like  Christ  in  his  day, 
is  come  not  to  call  the  righteous,  but  sinners  to  re- 
pentance, and  to  strengthen  the  righteous. 

I  know,  my  friends,  this  is  a  very  unusual  idea  of 
the  work  of  a  church,  the  requisitions  of  a  minister, 
or  the  functions  of  his  office.  Some  men  say  he  must 
never  meddle  with  business,  or  the  state,  or  the  per- 
ishing classes,  must  never  expose  a  great  social  wrong. 
Well,  if  a  man  is  to  appease  the  wrath  of  God, —  who 
is  never  angry, —  if  he  is  to  communicate  salvation  by 
a  machine,  if  he  is  to  explain  a  book  merely,  then  I 
admit  he  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  state,  which  may 
go  on  in  its  wickedness ;  nothing  to  do  with  business, 
which  may  tread  the  poor  to  the  ground;  nothing  to 
do  with  science,  letters,  morals,  or  manners.  But  if 
God  be  the  Infinite  God,  if  your  heart  and  mine  thirst 
for  religion,  then,  if  the  minister  is  to  promote  re- 
ligion, he  is  to  meddle  with  the  state,  business,  the  per- 
ishing classes,  literature,  science,  morals,  manners, 
every  thing  that  affects  the  welfare  of  mankind. 

THE  IDEAL  AND  THE  ACTUAL  CHURCH 
You  know  the  idea  of  a  church,  which  is  a  beautiful 
one.  It  is  that  of  a  body  of  men  and  women  meeting 
together,  with  a  common  reverence  for  that  great  Soul 
that  overlooks  the  world,  with  a  desire  to  promote 
their  progress  in  religion.  They  choose  the  ablest 
man  they  can  find  to  help  them  in  their  work,  a  man 
of  large  education,  able  in  conscience,  and  powerful 
in  soul.  They  say  to  him,  "  Come,  we  will  give  you 
your  daily  bread,  and  you  shall  break  the  bread  of  life 
for  us.     You  shall  warn  us  of  our  sins,  encourage  us 


244   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

in  our  virtues,  shall  stimulate  our  mind  with  truth,  our 
conscience  with  right,  our  heart  with  love,  and  our  soul 
with  faith  in  God.  Your  right  hand  shall  grasp  the 
heavens,  and  bring  down  electric  fire;  you  shall  dash 
the  thunderclouds  to  pieces,  and  give  us  the  early  and 
the  latter  rain,  to  quicken  every  herb  and  flower  at  our 
feet." 

What  a  beautiful  thought  is  such  a  church,  with 
such  a  minister,  a  real  live  minister  serving  a  live 
church,  bringing  out  of  his  treasury  the  old  things 
of  human  experience  and  the  new  things  of  human 
nature,  and  so  putting  his  prayer  and  inspiration 
into  the  public  life ;  and  the  people  encouraging 
him  in  every  word  he  utters.  Think  of  Boston 
with  four  or  five  score  of  such  churches  as  that,  and 
eighty  or  a  hundred  such  ministers.  That  would  be 
a  sign  of  Christianity  not  to  be  spoken  against.  And 
what  a  work  would  they  do  against  the  great  sins  of 
this  place, —  laying  their  hands  on  pauperism,  and 
stopping  that ;  putting  down  crime,  and  abating  mis- 
ery ;  turning  up  their  concave  mirror  towards  God  to 
receive  new  inspiration  from  Him,  and  holding  up  their 
lenses  to  every  quarter  of  the  world  to  gather  new 
fires  from  heaven  and  old  fires  from  earth.  Eighty 
or  a  hundred  such  churches  in  Boston  would  make  us 
a  city  of  saints  in  ten  years. 

But  look  at  the  fact  of  the  four  or  five  score  of 
churches  here.  Among  their  ministers  are  good  and 
excellent  men,  whom  I  love  and  honor.  I  am  not 
speaking  of  them  individually.  There  is  no  complaint 
made  against  them  in  general;  they  fit  their  position 
exactly.  But  see  what  they  aim  at.  As  a  body,  did 
they  ever  oppose  an  evil  or  a  falsehood  that  was  popu- 
lar, or  support  a  truth  that  was  unpopular?     In  this^ 


NATIONAL  LIFE  U5 

great  city  there  are  hundreds  of  anvils  ringing  with 
active  industry ;  the  churches  are  the  only  places  that 
sleep.  Compare  a  bank  or  an  insurance  office  with  a 
church;  one  is  all  alive  with  enterprise,  the  other  is 
nothing.  Compare  a  business  man  with  a  minister,  a 
superintendent  of  a  railroad  or  a  factory  with  the 
superintendent  of  a  church,  and  see  the  difference. 
Just  now  the  railroads  have  sent  out  a  powerful  engi- 
neer to  learn  some  new  way  to  tunnel  the  Alps ;  they 
wish  to  have  him  bring  back  a  new  method  of  hewing 
rocks  and  cutting  away  mountains.  It  is  proper  that 
this  should  be  done.  But  who  ever  heard  of  a  church's 
sending  out  a  competent  man  to  inquire  of  some  new 
body  of  men  who  had  discovered  a  way  of  tunneling 
through  sin,  and  cutting  down  the  great  mountains  of 
iniquity.''  We  have  able  men  in  all  other  professions, 
of  large  talents,  of  industry  which  rises  early  and  re- 
tires late ;  we  have  a  vast  amount  of  activity  which 
works  all  day  long ;  no  country  was  ever  richer  in 
ability  than  the  spot  on  which  we  stand.  But  where  are 
the  great  ministers  of  Boston?  There  is  talent  enough 
all  over  the  land ;  you  may  hear  the  foot-fall  of  genius 
in  your  streets  any  day ;  but  it  wears  not  the  steps  of 
the  pulpit.  Why  not?  Because  we  do  not  want  it 
to  preach  to  us ;  it  might  "  hurt  our  feelings."  You 
see  in  the  minister  a  smooth  man,  with  the  faculty  of 
words,  not  with  the  faculty  of  things,  who  glides 
smoothly  over  the  surface,  never  scratching  through 
the  varnish  of  the  world ;  a  man  of  low  mind  and  con- 
science and  soul,  of  no  ambition  to  serve  the  world 
with  wondrous  truth  and  beauty  and  piety,  even 
though  he  creep  on  his  knees  to  earn  his  daily  bread. 
Why  is  it  so?  It  is  because  the  people  love  to  have  it 
so.     It  is  not  the  prophet  Isaiah,  nor  Paul,  nor  Christ, 


246      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  ]MAN 

that  we  wish  to  have  our  minister;  but  it  is  a  priest. 
*'  Do  as  other  men  do," —  that  is  our  Sermon  on  the 
Mount.  "  Look  out  for  your  dollars  and  your  re- 
spectability,"—  these  are  the  beatitudes  which  are 
preached  to-day.  Do  you  think  we  want  to  have  other 
churches  and  different  ministers  here,''  These  answer 
the  end  they  were  designed  to  serve.  Like  people,  like 
priest.  I  state  the  truth  that  our  ministers  are  little 
men ;  but  think  not  that  I  blame  them.  I  only  mention 
the  fact  as  one  sign  of  the  place  and  rank  which  Chris- 
tianity holds  in  this  town. 

Suppose  a  great  man  should  come  to  Boston,  with 
the  pure,  absolute  religion  in  his  heart,  as  it  came  from 
the  nature  of  God.  Suppose  he  should  preach  it  with 
eloquence  that  transcended  all  we  know  of  old  inspira- 
tion. Suppose  he  was  a  learned  man,  full  of  the 
storied  history  of  the  past,  its  curious  literature,  its 
hard-won  experience.  Suppose  him  rich  in  science, 
keeping  even  pace  with  the  advance  of  men,  so  that  he 
swept  the  whole  ocean  of  human  thought,  and  gathered 
the  gems  of  every  land.  Let  him  have  prudence  to 
foresee,  as  well  as  power  to  remember ;  let  him  be  as 
wise  as  learned;  let  him  have  a  far-reaching  genius, 
which  at  a  single  stride  goes  whole  ages  before  man- 
kind. Let  him  be  a  million-minded  man,  endowed  with 
reason,  understanding,  and  imagination  which  can 
gather  poetry  from  every  star  in  heaven  and  every 
little  flower  that  springs  up  by  the  wayside.  Let  him 
stand  so  tall  as  to  catch  the  first  gleam  of  truth  far 
below  the  horizon,  and  reflect  it  down  to  you  and  me, 
and  to  the  humblest  mortal.  Let  him  preach  this  re- 
ligion, blasting  every  sin  with  lightning,  feeding  our 
righteousness  with  sunshine,  falling  like  God's  sun  and 
rain  on  the  evil  and  on  the  good.     Let  him  apply  his 


NATIONAL  LIFE  247 

religion,  giving  his  truth  to  our  mind,  justice  to  our 
conscience,  love  to  our  heart,  and  faith  to  our  soul; 
telling  us  what  is  wrong  in  our  daily  life  and  our 
theology,  and  in  place  thereof  importing  directly  from 
God  the  universal  right,  the  true  and  good,  to  bless 
mankind.  Let  him  do  all  this  with  the  power  of  a 
thousand  men,  and  love  equal  to  the  affection  of  a 
million  men.  Let  him  be  a  good  man ;  let  him  crumble 
up  all  his  substance  to  feed  the  poor.  Let  him  have 
charity  and  hope  and  faith  even  beyond  the  apostles, 
and  let  him  bring  it  all  to  work  and  wake  religion  in 
our  hearts,  and  aim  to  establish  it  among  mankind. 
Suppose  such  a  man  should  come, —  should  we  give 
him  a  welcome.''  Should  we  ask  him  to  our  pulpits? 
No.  Should  we  suffer  him  to  be?  We  should  tell 
him  his  learning  was  folly,  his  genius  madness,  his 
love  a  cheat,  his  inspiration  insanity,  his  reason 
fanaticism,  and  his  love  of  God  infidelity.  We  should 
say  of  him,  as  they  said  of  the  old  prophet,  "  He  is 
clean  contrary  to  our  ways,  and  we  will  have  none  of 
him."  A  few  good  men  would  gather  about  him,  and 
welcome  him,  and  say  to  him,  "  Prophet,  sow  the  seed 
of  God  in  our  hearts !  It  is  poor  soil,  but  possibly 
a  com  or  two  may  come  up  and  take  root,  and  keep 
alive  the  seed  of  godliness  on  the  earth."  They  would 
shelter  him  with  their  bare  bosoms  if  need  were ;  but 
the  rest  of  us  would  only  hate  him,  as  the  Jews  hated 
the  Christ  whom  they  cast  off. 

NEW  INSTITUTIONS  REQUIRE  NEW  SOIL 

All  experience  shows  how  difficult  it  is  to  build  up 
new  institutions  on  the  ruins  of  old  institutions  in  the 
same  country.  Christianity^  came  very  early  to  Rome, 
but  it  has  always  been  vitiated  by  the  old  paganism 


248   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

that  is  there.  The  Christians  very  early  at  Rome  be- 
came the  intensest  bigots.  They  were  forced  into 
bigotry  by  the  paganism  around  them ;  but  even  their 
bigotry  could  not  weed  paganism  out  of  their  ranks. 
Christianity  is  the  democracy  of  religion ;  but  at  first 
it  could  not  organize  its  democratic  idea  amongst  the 
ancient  people,  because  the  old  aristocratic  forms  of 
religion  preoccupied  the  ground.  The  old  crop  had 
so  injured  the  soil  that  it  would  not  take  kindly  to 
the  new  seed  that  got  sown  there.  Christianity,  there- 
fore, thrived  much  better  amongst  the  new  nations  of 
the  north  than  amongst  the  old  nations  of  the  south, 
simply  because  it  did  not  find  the  ground  preoccupied 
by  religious  institutions  and  mythology.  Protestant- 
ism is  the  democracy  of  Christianity ;  but  Protestantism 
could  not  be  carried  out  in  countries  that  had  long 
been  stained  by  Catholicism.  Accordingly  it  has 
never  borne  its  legitimate  fruits  on  the  continent  of 
Europe,  nor  even  in  England. 

This  same  difficulty  appears  in  the  political  develop- 
ment of  mankind.  The  great  ideas  of  America  are 
not  wholly  our  own ;  they  were  bom  the  other  side  of 
the  sea,  they  existed  as  sentiments  hundreds  of  years 
ago,  and  as  ideas  a  hundred  years  ago ;  but  the  old 
institutions  lay  there  in  the  way,  and  hindered  these 
new  ideas  from  becoming  facts.  After  the  old  crop 
was  out  of  the  ground,  the  old  stubble  still  choked  the 
rising  corn.  See  how  difficult  it  is  to  establish  a  re- 
public in  France;  not  from  lack  of  ideas,  nor  of  men 
who  welcome  the  ideas,  but  on  account  of  the  old  in- 
stitutions ;  the  stumps  of  old  theocracy,  monarchy, 
aristocracy,  are  still  in  the  ground,  and  it  is  hard  work 
to  get  them  out.  This  rule  goes  far.  The  old  civil- 
ization has  perished  from  Egypt,  Asia  Minor,  India, 


NATIONAL  LIFE  249 

Greece,  Assyria,  Italy,  but  no  new  civilization  has 
come  to  take  its  place.  These  countries  are  still  in 
the  hands  of  the  despot.  Clear  off  the  despots,  mak- 
ing the  soil  clean  of  these  old  stumps,  and  it  would  take 
very  kindly  to  the  new  seed.  This  will  not  always 
be  so.  The  same  thing  takes  place  in  agriculture. 
The  savage  crops  his  ground  till  he  has  exhausted  it 
and  it  will  grow  no  more  com,  and  then  he  turns  to 
a  new  soil ;  but  the  scientific  farmer  brings  new  crops 
out  of  the  same  soil.  Nations  do  the  same.  I  doubt 
not  that  mankind  will  one  day  reclaim  Egypt,  India, 
Greece  and  Ital}^  for  a  new  development  in  arts  and 
freedom.  Mankind  has  not  learned  how  to  do  it  yet. 
Accordingly  it  was  a  great  advantage  to  mankind  that 
there  was  a  new  and  virgin  continent,  which  God  had 
hid  away  off  here  in  the  Western  ocean,  where  the 
ideas  of  Christianity^  Protestantism,  and  Democracy 
might  come.  Our  fathers  took  these  ideas  in  their 
hands  and  sought  to  set  them  up  in  England.  Driven 
thence,  they  sought  to  erect  them  in  Holland.  But 
the  king  and  priest  turned  our  fathers  out  of  doors, 
and  they  fled  here.  It  seemed  a  hard  fate,  but  it  was 
the  best  thing  for  them,  for  their  ideas,  and  for  man- 
kind ;  for  had  they  attempted  to  found  such  a  nation 
in  Europe,  it  seems  to  me  they  could  not  have  accom- 
plished in  a  thousand  years  what  they  have  now  done 
in  two  hundred  and  fifty. 

MAN  PROPOSES,  AND  GOD  DISPOSES 

The  institutions  which  tend  to  make  us  rich,  intelli- 
gent, and  free,  are  circumstances  created  by  man. 
The  machinery  wherewith  we  make  carpets  at  Lowell, 
and  woolens  and  muslins  at  Manchester,  turned  by 
the  brute  forces  of  material  nature,  is  the  work  of  men. 


250   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

The  machinery  of  institutions  which  help  make  the 
character  of  New  Englanders,  machinery  turned  by 
the  spiritual  forces  of  human  nature,  is  just  as  much 
the  work  of  men  as  the  other.  What  we  call  Chris- 
tianity is  a  human  scheme  of  religion,  a  republic  is  a 
human  scheme  of  government,  both  machines  con- 
structed by  human  thought.  Two  hundred  years  ago 
the  institutions  of  New  England,  church,  state,  society, 
commerce,  and  the  like,  tended  to  make  rough,  strong 
men  and  women,  able-bodied  farmers,  mechanics,  sol- 
diers, hunters,  Indian-killers.  The  circumstances  of 
New  England  at  this  day  tend  to  produce  a  very  dif- 
ferent form  of  humanity.  In  two  hundred  years  we 
have  altered  the  machinery,  made  the  mill  turn  out  a 
very  different  and  superior  form  of  work.  It  is  true 
that  two  hundred  years  ago  no  man  said,  "  Go  to,  now ! 
Let  us  devise  us  institutions  which  will  produce  such 
men  and  women."  They  trapped  for  other  game,  and 
found  in  their  net  prizes  they  looked  not  for.  Fight- 
ing Indians  and  Frenchmen,  New  England  did  not  think 
she  was  getting  rid  of  the  English  king  and  nobility. 
Putting  up  saw-mills  on  Charles  River  and  iron-mills 
at  Saugus,  holding  town-meetings,  this  good  old 
mother  that  bore  us  all  did  not  know  she  was  educat- 
ing her  children.  She  was  filling  her  mouth,  building 
her  houses,  she  did  not  know  what  else.  When  with 
marsh  hay  she  thatched  the  first  school-house  in  New 
Plymouth,  she  did  not  see  that  the  Patent  Office  at 
Washington  would  one  day  come,  as  only  a  small  wing 
thereunto,  Man  proposes,  and  God  disposes  a  great 
many  things  which  man  never  thought  of.  Old  patri- 
arch Jesse,  remembering  his  sons  in  battle,  sent  strip- 
ling David  with  bread  and  cheese  to  his  brothers ;  but 
when  he  got  there,  David  slew  the  giant  and  became 


NATIONAL  LIFE  251 

Israel's  king.     So  goes  the  world,     Man  proposes  a 
saw-mill,  and  God  disposes  it  into  a  college. 

NATIONAL   PROGRESS 

It  is  a  good  thing  for  a  nation  to  be  born  into 
human  history,  to  do  its  work,  and  then  cease  to 
cumber  the  ground.  Most  men  seem  to  pray  that 
America  may  be  perpetual,  that  the  Union  and  Con- 
stitution may  last  forever.  I  hope  not.  Surely  there 
are  better  things  in  store  than  this  "  universal 
Yankee,"  and  better  States  than  this  "  model  Re- 
public," with  its  worship  of  money  and  its  sacrifice  of 
men.  All  the  good  things  we  have  shall  be  preserved, 
the  evil  perish,  and  the  nation  with  it.  Mankind  will 
one  day  bury  the  American  State  as  gladly  as  the 
Babylonian,  or  Egyptian,  or  Roman,  was  gathered  to 
its  fathers.  This  nation  shall  also  do  its  work  and 
pass  away ;  and  future  discoverers  will  dig  in  the 
ruins  of  Boston,  as  antiquaries  explore  the  Indian  re- 
mains of  the  West;  and  they  will  come  upon  some 
remnant  of  our  civilization,  and  they  will  say,  "  These 
people  were  not  wholly  savage."  Better  institutions, 
better  forms  of  religion,  will  appear,  and  better  men 
will  tread  the  ground  over  our  heads.  They  will  have 
gathered  up  every  good  thing  that  we  brought  to  light, 
and  put  it  in  the  golden  um  of  history,  to  be  kept 
forever. 

The  union  of  men  in  large  masses  is  indispensable 
to  the  development  and  rapid  growth  of  the  higher 
faculties  of  man.  Cities  have  always  been  the  fire- 
places of  civilization,  whence  light  and  heat  radiate 
out  into  the  dark  cold  world. 


252   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

THE  HIGHEST  FUNCTION  OF  A  NATION 

The  highest  function  of  a  nation  is  to  bring  forth 
and  bring  up  noble  men  and  women.  High  character, 
intellectual,  moral,  afFectional,  and  religious,  is  the 
fairest  fruit  which  grows  on  national  institutions,  and 
this  is  always  the  test  question,  "  What  manner  of  men 
and  women  does  the  nation  bear  and  breed? "  If 
they  be  mean  and  low,  it  is  vain  to  boast  of  farms  and 
mines,  of  mills  and  palaces,  and  riches  high  piled  up. 
Nay,  Democracy  and  Christianity  are  good  for  noth- 
ing, if  they  bear  not  men.  A  Newton,  a  Franklin, 
a  Washington,  a  Socrates,  a  Jesus,  a  Luther,  an  Isaac 
Hopper,  how  much  land  or  factory  stock,  how  many 
million  votes,  would  you  set  off  against  them.?  Venice 
produced  cold  and  material  beauty ;  she  never  nursed 
a  saint  in  her  bosom,  nor  bore  a  sage,  nor  orator,  nor 
bard  ;  while  poor  and  ragged  Scotland  teems  with  poets, 
orators,  philosophers,  philanthropists,  noble  men. 

HOW  TO  ESTIMATE  THE  VALUE  OF  A  NATION 

In  ^estimating  the  value  of  a  nation,  you  must  not 
merely  count  the  men,  you  must  weigh  them.  You 
must  not  barely  weigh  the  dollars,  but  gauge  and 
measure  and  scan  the  quality  of  the  men  who  own 
the  dollars.  An  armful  of  Hebrews,  a  handful  of 
old  Greeks,  have  been  of  more  value  to  the  human  race 
than  all  the  four  hundred  millions  of  Chinese,  with 
their  Tartar  and  Malay  progenitors.  A  single  Moses, 
Socrates,  or  Jesus  would  weigh  down  whole  provinces 
of  the  Celestial  Empire. 

The  constitutions  which  people  value  most  are  writ 
on  the  parchment  of  a  drum-head.  In  the  costliest  of 


NATIONAL  LIFE  253 

ink,  which  man  carries  in  his  heart, —  and  they  are 
writ  to  the  awful  chime  of  cannon  and  the  falHng  of 
towered  towns. 

Chief  Justice  Blackstone  said  that  woman  was  the 
favorite  of  Enghsh.  law.  He  should  have  said  she  was 
the  favorite  victim  of  English  law. 

SUDDEN   WEALTH   IN   A  NATION   NOT  FAVORABLE 
TO  PIETY 

Covetousness  is  the  great  sin  of  America  just  now. 
The  priest  of  mammon  comes  up  with  his  "  Thus  saith 
the  Lord  1 "  and  the  true  God  is  bid  to  stand  back. 
This  was  never  so  in  New  England  before.  New"  Eng- 
land for  a  long  time  was  an  exception  in  the  world's 
history,  and  the  class  of  men  here  who  had  the  highest 
intellectual  culture,  and  the  largest  wealth,  and  fore- 
most social  position,  was  the  class  in  whom  religion 
culminated  and  was  preponderant.  You  could  not 
have  found  another  example  of  this  in  the  whole  globe 
of  lands.  Why  was  that.?  Because  New  England 
was  a  religious  colony,  and  men  came  here  on  account 
of  their  religious  character ;  came,  as  our  fathers  said, 
to  sow  the  wilderness  with  good  seed.  The  Puritan 
mother  grimly  took  her  austere  baby  in  her  religious 
arms,  and  fled  over  the  waters,  to  bring  up,  in  a  log 
cabin,  this  little  child  to  obey  God, —  come  what  might 
come  to  him,  come  what  might  come  to  men, —  to 
obey  God  at  all  times.  Now  the  Puritan  blood  is 
strong  blood.  It  does  not  run  out  in  one  generation 
or  two ;  it  does  not  get  much  adulterated  except  after 
several  generations. 

Now  sudden  prosperity  and  a  great  increase  of  wealth 
has  come  within  fifty  years,  and  it  has  brought  the 


254   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

consequences  which  sudden  wealth  never  failed  to  bring 
on  a  nation,  state,  or  city.  It  has  brought  a  decline 
of  piety  in  the  class  of  men  foremost  in  social  rank. 
The  religion  of  New  England  is  no  longer  an  excep- 
tion in  the  history  of  the  world.  I  am  not  blaming 
any  one,  only  stating  the  facts. 


VII 

THE  POWER  AND  ENDURANCE  OF 
WHAT  IS  NOBLEST  IN  MAN 

THE  POWER  OF  THOUGHT 

The  power  of  mind  is  amazing.  How  much  we  can 
do  with  thought.  It  is  the  universal  solvent  which 
reads  all  difficulties.  All  things  which  men  make  are 
thoughts  first.  Bows  and  arrows,  the  last  gun,  the 
last  plough,  were  all  thoughts  before  they  were  things, 
and  hit  the  mark  in  some  man's  mind  before  they  were 
let  fly  in  the  open  air.  The  house,  the  ship,  the  bridge, 
the  factory,  were  all  thoughts ;  when  you  come  to  the 
bottom  thereof,  you  see  they  hang  balanced  between 
a  man's  mind  and  the  earth's  gravitation.  So  with  the 
institutions  of  England  and  America ;  the  common 
law,  civil  law,  statute  law,  were  all  thoughts.  The 
invisible  mind  of  man  is  the  great  workshop  of  the 
human  race;  there  unseen  hands  construct  the  mills 
which  grind  for  us  peace,  quiet,  order.  All  civil 
mouths  open  at  the  miller's  trough ;  so  all  men  revolve 
about  the  thinker.  The  fine  lady  whom  I  saw  in  the 
street  the  other  day,  carrying  half  an  ass's  load  of 
finery,  and  such  a  weighty  ballast  of  jewels,  for  so 
low  and  small  a  sail  of  wit,  is  yet  the  fine  ore  of  those 
rough,  able  minds  who  have  woven  her  up  out  of  such 
manifold  threads.  Nay,  the  fop  is  equally  beholden, 
and  if  little  thought  goes  in  his  hat,  very  much  went 
to  it.  What  a  busy,  bustling,  noisy  city  is  this  Bos- 
ton. It  reminds  the  Biblical  man  of  the  net  which 
hungry  Simon  Peter  saw  in  his  vision,  wherein  were 
four-footed  beasts,  wild  beasts,  and  creeping  things. 
255 


g56   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

But  as  you  look  It  all  over  and  through,  you  see  that 
this  city  likewise  is  knit  at  the  four  corners,  and  the 
whole  is  let  down  out  of  the  heaven  of  man's  intellect, 
and  it  all  resolves  itself  to  thought  again ;  the  great 
machinery,  the  wares  in  the  windows  of  the  shops,  and 
all  the  other  contrivances  of  use  or  beauty,  are  all 
transmuted,  and  you  see  the  stock  they  were  woven 
out  of,  and  the  little  shop  of  man's  brain  wherein  they 
were  fashioned  up. 

A  quiet  man  sits  in  his  little  room,  and  thinks  down 
into  the  depths  of  human  nature,  and  learns  the  con- 
stant modes  of  operation  whereby  .men  should  keep 
the  eternal  laws  of  God ;  and  he  thence  constructs  in- 
stitutions which  are  to  mold  the  destinies  of  millions 
of  men  not  yet  bom.  He  is  the  most  influential  man 
in  all  the  town.  He  makes  no  noise,  thinking  his 
silent  work ;  you  do  not  hear  his  voice  in  the  street, 
with  the  rumbling  of  loaded  drays,  the  shouting  of 
drivers  trundling  their  costly  merchandise,  the  noisy 
railroad  trains  which  carry  it  thence  across  the  con- 
tinent. Perhaps  nobody  knows  him,  or  sees  that  he 
is  thinking.  He  is  not  a  member  of  the  Academy  of 
Arts  and  Sciences,  no  Doctorate  of  Laws  waits  for 
him ;  he  is  one  of  the  forces  of  the  universe,  and  it 
would  be  ridiculous  to  doctorate  him.  Great  ships 
are  unloading  at  the  merchants'  wharves,  great  wheels 
turn  the  manufacturers'  mills  with  endless  buzz,  and 
the  clock  is  never  silent,  while  the  thinker  makes  less 
noise  than  the  carpenter  putting  up  a  shelf  in  the  room 
hard  by,  or  the  girl  bringing  his  cheap  dinner  home ; 
and  he  is  yet  doing  a  work  which  will  last  wlien  mer- 
chants and  ships,  and  manufacturers  and  mills,  have 
all  gone  down  the  stream  of  time  and  vanished  into 
silence  and  perished  utterly.      Ships  of  thought  noise- 


POWER  AND  ENDURANCE  257 

lessly  unlade  their  wares  at  his  door,  where  the  river 
of  God,  which  is  full  of  water,  comes  to  turn  also  his 
silent  mill,  and  there  is  no  looker-on. 

How  quietly  this  goes  on.  Did  you  ever  see  the 
vegetative  force,  or  hear  the  centrifugal  forces  of  the 
earth,  the  moon,  the  sun,  in  virtue  whereof  we  walk, 
or  sit,  or  stand,  or  continue  to  be?  What  a  busy, 
bustling  city  was  Athens,  four  hundred  years  before 
Christ !  What  pride  there  was  of  rich  men,  and 
shouting  of  their  slaves,  what  bawling  of  orators  in 
the  forum,  what  traffic  in  the  markets  and  shops,  what 
braying  of  donkeys,  and  noise  in  the  fields !  Now  all 
this  is  hushed  and  silent;  the  rich  men  are  forgotten, 
and  the  bawling  of  orators,  the  stir  of  the  markets, 
and  the  braying  of  donkeys,  long  since  ceased  to  be 
heard.  But  through  the  ages  comes  the  voice  of  that 
one  great  thinker,  Socrates,  and  sways  the  counsels  of 
thoughtful  men  all  round  the  world.  So  is  it  with 
Jesus  of  Nazareth.  In  Jerusalem  were  gatherings  of 
merchants  from  Alexandria  ancj  Damascus,  Tarshish 
and  Babylon ;  the  Roman  proconsuls  there  held  their 
court,  and  Herod  the  Great  was  also  there,  with  his 
dangerous  power  and  untamed  lust.  What  troops  of 
priests  and  Levites  were  there,  and  the  high  priest 
with  his  urim  and  thummim  on  his  breast,  the  ark 
of  the  covenant  behind  the  veil,  and  the  seven  golden 
candlesticks  were  also  there.  But  now  it  has  all 
passed  away, —  the  pomp  of  Herod's  glory,  the  solemn 
grandeur  of  the  high  priest ;  nobody  asks  strength 
or  might  from  the  urim  and  thummim;  the  ark  of 
the  covenant  is  gone;  the  seven  golden  candlesticks 
have  been  carried  to  Rome  and  thrown  into  the  Tiber, 
and  no  man  knoweth  where  to  seek  for  them ;  the 
temples  and  walls  of  Jerusalem  have  crumbled  before 
XI— 17 


258   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

the  Roman  power,  and  Rome  herself  has  been  driven 
to  waste,  and  her  gods  are  only  the  playthings  of  the 
poet.  But  the  thought  of  a  Nazarene  peasant  has 
come  down  to  us,  an  obscure  young  man  riding  on  a 
donkey,  attended  by  barefooted  peasants  and  humble 
fishermen,  and  has  driven  out  from  the  old  temples 
all  that  bought  and  sold  and  made  merchandise  therein, 
and  now  fills  the  wide  green  world  with  temples  and 
priests. 

The  free  institutions  of  New  England  are  only  the 
thoughts  of  our  fathers  done  into  men,  and  our 
thoughts  will  one  day  be  institutions  if  they  are  true 
and  great,  and  you  and  I  are  greatly  true  thereunto. 
Said  an  old  man  to  another,  "  We  must  put  down  that 
young  thinker.  He  raises  terrible  questions."  The 
truth  was,  the  young  thinker  had  got  thoughts,  and 
truths,  too,  that  the  old  man  had  not,  and  would  not 
tolerate.  Put  him  down. ^^  It  cannot  be  done !  There 
is  not  force  enough  in  the  human  race  to  annihilate 
a  single  truth,  though  one  man  of  the  earth  had  it, 
and  all  the  rest  had  it  not. 

THE  POWER  OF  TRUTH 

The  collective  action  of  mankind  is  to  proceed  from 
the  same  motive,  to  obey  the  same  moral  law,  aim  at 
the  same  noble  mark,  and  reach  the  same  perfection,  as 
the  individual  action  of  a  single  man.  Mankind  is 
but  a  great  man.  So  a  true  idea  must  not  only  become 
private  excellence  in  the  corporeal,  intellectual,  moral, 
affectional,  and  religious  character  of  a  particular 
man  or  woman,  but  come  out  in  the  joy  and  gladness 
of  whole  millions  of  men.  It  will  not  only  chase  errors 
from  my  heart,  but  burn  them  up  from  the  whole  world 
of  men ;  for,  as  a  spark  of  fire  falling  into  dry  grass 


POWER  AND  ENDURANCE  259 

In  the  Northwest  territory  must  needs  bum  and  sweep 
over  a  wide  reach  of  prairie,  so  a  great  truth,  burning 
at  first  in  a  single  soul,  must  ere  long  consume  the 
false  doctrines,  from  the  family,  community,  nation, 
human  race ;  na}^,  rather,  as  a  true  theological  doctrine 
is  creative  more  than  destroying,  like  a  single  grain 
of  corn  it  will  come  up,  and  grow,  and  bear  fruit 
after  its  kind,  whose  seed  is  in  itself,  and  so  become 
the  parent  of  other  stalks  and  fields  of  com,  and  in 
time  it  will  sow  the  continent  with  its  precious  seed, 
and  feed  men  by  the  million.  So  great  truths  about 
man,  God,  religion,  bum  for  many  a  night  in  some 
humble  mind,  all  obscure  and  unheeded,  and  of  a  Sun- 
da}'  in  some  lowly  pulpit  they  get  preached  to  a  few 
shoemakers,  to  farming  folk  with  their  sweethearts 
and  little  ones  and  wives,  sitting  there  in  their  pews ; 
and  they  will  one  day  be  a  fire  in  the  dry  grass  and 
thick  old  woods  of  theologic  error,  which  shall  crackle, 
and  burn,  and  fall  before  the  flame ;  and  next  they  will 
become  com  for  daily  bread  and  for  future  seed;  and 
so  at  length  shall  they  turn  into  happy  life,  widespread 
over  many  a  green  island  of  the  sea,  over  broad  con- 
tinents, and  become  condensed  into  the  focal  civiliza- 
tion of  great  cities,  full  of  men  rich  in  material  and 
spiritual  worth. 

There  never  was  a  great  truth  but  it  got  reverenced ; 
never  a  great  institution,  nor  a  great  man,  that  did 
not,  sooner  or  later,  receive  the  reverence  of  mankind. 

ONLY   TRUTH   AND   JUSTICE   WILL   SATISFY   MAN 
Now  man  is  so  made  that  nothing  but  truth  will  sat- 
isfy him.     Interest  may  seem  to  demand  a  falsehood, 
but  such  is  the  nature  of  man,  that,  spite  of  interest, 


260   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

he  will  have  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the 
truth.  The  self-will  of  popes  and  kings,  of  courts 
and  crowds,  may  frighten  me  from  the  truth  to-day ; 
to-morrow  I  will  turn  to  it,  and  confront  the  ax  and  the 
fagot ;  nay,  I  will  convert  popes  and  kings  and  courts 
and  crowds.  Human  nature  demands  the  true  relation 
between  man  and  man,  demands  justice.  Hence  it 
makes  laws,  enacting  to-day  the  justice  that  it  sees, 
and  nothing  but  justice  will  satisfy  it.  To-day  per- 
sonal selfishness  triumphs,  and  men  make  a  law  which 
is  unjust;  but  to-morrow  it  must  all  be  made  over 
again.  No  passion,  no  purchased  injustice,  can  pre- 
vail over  the  conscience  of  mankind ;  that  will  grav- 
itate towards  the  right,  just  as  the  waters  from  Mount 
Washington  will  run  down  on  either  side,  and  seek 
and  find  the  sea.  No  judge,  no  supreme  court,  no 
army,  can  make  injustice  go  down  with  mankind. 
Write  it,  enact  it,  get  soldiers  to  execute  it,  get  mean 
lawyers  to  enforce  it,  get  hireling  judges  to  declare  it 
constitutional,  get  base  priests  to  declare  it  is  of  God, 
■ —  it  is  all  in  vain !  Slowly,  silently,  step  by  step, 
mankind  advances,  and  advances,  and  advances,  and 
puts  its  foot  on  the  wicked  thing,  and  treads  it  into 
dust.  Only  truth  satisfies  the  mind  at  last,  only  jus- 
tice the  conscience.  The  human  race  is  in  perpetual 
convention  to  revise  its  constitutions,  to  amend  its  laws. 
History  is  a  revolution  of  mankind,  a  turning  over  and 
over  again.  Therein  conscience  gets  the  victory  over 
selfishness,  justice  comes  nearer  and  nearer  to  conquest 
every  day.  Truth  is  never  lost  from  man's  science, 
nor  a  single  grain  of  justice  from  human  laws.  No  par- 
liament, nor  king,  nor  pope,  nor  president,  nor  conven- 
tion, nor  crowd,  with  "  manifest  destiny  "  to  aid  them, 
can  ever  make  a  lie  or  a  wrong  respectable  in  the  eyes 


POWER  AND  ENDURANCE  261 

of  mankind.  It  is  hard  for  an  empty  bag  to  stand 
upright,  or  science  without  truth,  or  law  without 
justice;  down  they  must.  Let  me  be  sure  that  a  thing 
is  true, —  I  know  mankind's  intellect  shall  welcome  it. 
Convince  me  that  a  thing  is  right, —  I  know  that 
slowly,  inch  by  inch,  mankind  will  march  towards  that 
right,  form  lines  upon  it,  defend  it  with  their  life's 
blood.  In  man's  love  of  truth  and  justice,  I  see  the 
grandeur  and  glory  of  human  nature.  I  look,  with 
profoundest  gratitude  to  God,  on  this  steadfast  prog- 
ress of  mankind  in  justice,  and  I  look  on  it  with  amaze- 
ment too ;  for  I  also  know  the  power  of  passion,  the 
mighty  force  of  self-interest.  But  there  is  a  con- 
science in  us  which,  like  the  attraction  of  sun  and 
moon,  on  the  waters,  sways  the  nations  of  men,  and 
leads  us  forward  in  the  path  we  have  not  trod, 
and  which  only  God's  eye  hath  seen. 

Justice  is  the  keynote  of  the  world,  and  all  else  is 
ever  out  of  tune. 

INTEGRITY  WINS 

There  Is  nothing  which  mankind  respects  so  much  as 
integrity ;  we  pay  homage  to  every  form  of  it.  This 
quality  in  a  man  wins  the  esteem  of  his  fellows  more 
than  wealth  or  eloquence,  or  brilliant  talents,  and  in  a 
woman  attracts  men  more  than  elegance  of  dress  or 
beauty  of  person.  Beauty  in  woman  is  a  well-written 
letter  of  recommendation,  introducing  her  to  the  world 
and  bespeaking  the  kindly  offices  of  every  man.  It  is 
also  the  "  cynosure  of  neighboring  eyes,"  and  by  its 
sidereal  magnetism,  draws  all  men  unto  it.  But  if  it 
be  attended  with  indolence  and  selfishness,  if  the  bearer 
of  this  epistle  in  the  flesh  turn  out  a  wicked  mother,  an 


262   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

evil  wife,  a  false  sweetheart,  with  what  scorn  do  we 
look  on  the  beautiful  devil,  whose  shame  cannot  be 
hid,  neither  by  the  dress  of  Eve  in  Eden,  nor  that  of 
many-skirted  Empress  Eugenie  in  Paris.  What  hom- 
age do  we  pay  to  the  womanly  integrity  of  every  aunt, 
sister,  daughter,  Avife,  or  friend,  never  so  ugly,  who 
will  do  duty,  though  at  the  cost  of  great  self-sacri- 
fice! 

Amongst  public  men,  eloquence  is  what  beauty  is  to 
a  woman,  or  what  riches  are  to  a  private  citizen.  What 
crowds  will  hang  on  the  words  of  Mr.  Fair-Speech  I 
They  are  swayed  to  and  fro  by  the  motions  of  his 
finger,  quivering  with  unmeaning  gesture,  uplifted  in 
the  air.  They  are  overloaded  by  the  sounding  words 
which  ring  from  his  lips.  Mr.  Items,  the  penny-a- 
liner,  Mr.  Hifalutin,  the  editor  of  the  Spread  Eagle 
and  Know-Nothing  Gazette,  each  declares  the  gods 
have  come  down  to  us  in  the  likeness  of  man,  each 
brings  his  sheep  and  oxen  to  do  sacrifice,  and  breaks 
down  the  English  language  with  his  stupid  adulation. 
But  by  and  by  the  mass  of  men  find  out  that  Mr. 
Fair-Speech  is  all  talk,  his  eloquence  foaming  at  the 
mouth.  It  is  ascertained  that  the  eloquent  lawyer 
pleads  as  well  for  the  wrong  as  the  right ;  it  is  found 
out  that  the  lecturer  aims  to  please  for  his  own  sake, 
not,  with  manly  generosity,  to  instruct  for  that  of 
his  hearers ;  that  the  politician  knows  no  *'  higher 
law  "  above  the  selfishness  of  his  party  or  his  own  am- 
bition ;  that  the  Rev.  Dr.  Hot-and-Cold  takes  a 
"  Southside  "  view  of  every  wickedness,  and  for  thirty 
pieces  of  silver  he  would  privately  sell  Jesus  a  second 
time,  and  publicly  attribute  to  Iscariot  every  Chris- 
tian virtue ;  —  and  when  men  come  to  understand  this, 
they  look  with  contempt  upon  the  mean  creatures  who 


POWER  AND  ENDURANCE  263 

prostitute  their  genius  to  earn  the  wages  of  iniquity, 
and  turn  off  to  some  plain,  honest,  earnest  man, — 
minister,  lawyer,  politician,  lecturer, —  who  only  aims 
to  tell  the  unheeded  truth,  and  gives  saving  counsel 
to  "  do  justly,  love  mercy,  and  walk  humbly  with 
God,"  and  take  what  comes  of  it;  and  when  he  dies, 
though  there  are  no  "  seventy  mourning  coaches,  and 
one  hundred  and  forty  sorrowful  horses,"  and  no  flies 
of  fashion  and  wealth  to  buzz  about  his  dead  face, 
yet  of  him  it  shall  be  said,  as  of  the  first  Christian 
martyr,  "  Devout  men  carried  Stephen  to  his  burial, 
and  made  great  lamentation  over  him." 

THE  JOYS  OF  CONSCIENCE 

Conscience  brings  delights  which  far  surpass  those 
of  the  intellect.  No  creation  of  literary  or  scientific 
genius  can  give  such  joy  as  the  organization  of  justice 
into  human  life,  and  the  re-enactment  of  the  laws  of 
nature  into  the  institutions  of  court  and  state  and 
church.  No  doubt  there  is  a  proud  delight  in  creating 
works  of  literary  or  artistic  genius,  but  what  are 
they  to  the  works  of  justice  and  humanity?  Leib- 
nitz makes  his  Calculus  of  Infinitesimals,  Newton  con- 
structs his  Principia  of  the  Heavens,  Bacon  devises 
his  New  Instrument  of  Thought,  Laplace  describes 
in  science  the  Mechanics  of  the  sky,  and  Von  Hum- 
boldt groups  all  the  knowledge  of  mankind  into  one 
great  Cosmos  of  order  and  beauty. 

These  are  great  works,  attended  with  well-propor- 
tioned joy.  But  the  Bacons  who  make  new  instru- 
ments for  morals,  the  Leibnitzes  who  calculate  the 
infinitesimals  of  conscience,  the  Newtons  who  determine 
the  principia  of  ethics,  and  the  Laplaces  who  organize 
the  celestial  mechanics  of  human  society,  and  show  how 


264   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

men  can  live  together  peaceful  and  blessed,  the  Hum- 
boldts  who  shall  condense  the  science  of  past  times  and 
present  into  one  great  human  cosmos,  where  the  strong 
and  weak  shall  dwell  happily  together, —  how  much 
grander  is  their  work,  and  how  much  more  joy  does 
it  bring  the  man,  and  those  who  shall  rejoice  therein! 

THE  PREPONDEEANCE  OF  GOODNESS  IN  THE  WORLD 
OF   MAN 

As  I  look  over  a  year  of  time,  I  am  astonished  at  the 
amount  of  goodness  which  I  have  seen,  more  than  I  am 
at  any  thing  besides.  The  evil  lies  atop,  it  is  in  sight 
of  all  men  who  open  their  eyes,  while  deeper  down 
there  is  laid  the  solid  goodness  of  mankind,  which  is 
not  always  visible,  and  never  at  a  glance. 

What  we  name  goodness  is  made  up  of  four  ele- 
ments. The  topmost  and  chiefly  obvious  thing  is  be- 
nevolence, general  good  willing,  what  we  call  kindness, 
a  feeling  of  relationship  toward  all  mankind,  or 
toward  those  special  members  of  the  human  family 
who  stand  nearest  to  us.  This  benevolence  is  colored 
into  various  complexions  by  the  circumstances  of  the 
individual,  and  is  turned  to  various  specialties  of  hu- 
man action,  directed  now  to  one  form  of  humanity, 
and  then  another,  but  it  is  always  marked  by  good 
temper,  good  humor,  or  good  nature. 

Benevolence  being  the  most  conspicuous  element  in 
goodness,  we  think  it  is  all.  But  as  you  look  a  little 
deeper,  you  find  the  next  most  obvious  element  is  sin- 
cerity. The  benevolent  man  is  what  he  seems.  He 
does  not  wax  himself  over  with  a  fair  outside,  to  hide 
his  mean  substance  by  a  surface  show  of  splendid  and 
costly  qualities.  His  wood  is  solid ;  it  is  not  a  plank 
of  deal,  veneered  over  with  a  thin  coating  of  rose- 


POWER  AND  ENDURANCE  265 

wood,  but  as  he  seems  outside  he  is  inside.  His  virtu- 
ous complexion  is  not  painted  on  him,  but  runs 
through  all  his  substance. 

Thirdly,  there  comes  justice,  that  fairness  which 
aims  to  give  every  man  his  due.  But  with  our  good 
man,  it  is  commonly  justice  which  is  more  anxious  to 
do  duty  for  others  than  to  claim  right  for  himself; 
more  anxious  to  pay  an  obligation  than  to  collect  a 
debt.  It  is  justice  mixed  with  that  sweet  leaven  of 
mercy  which  makes  it  a  lighter  but  more  attractive 
bread,  a  good  deal  different  from  that  sour  unleavened 
bread  of  justice  merely.  In  those  that  we  call  good 
men,  the  affections  are  a  little  stronger  than  con- 
science; so  the  good  man's  justice  is  sometimes  not 
quite  plumb,  it  bends  a  little,  from  his  personal  in- 
terest. But  that  is  a  failing  which  leans  to  virtue's 
side.  The  good  man  has  more  justice  than  other  men, 
but  designs  to  be  a  little  more  than  just  towards 
others,  and  is  a  little  less  than  just  to  himself.  Such  a 
man  is  like  those  generous  traders  who  always  make  a 
liberal  scalage  in  selling,  and  then  make  some  little  de- 
duction also  when  they  come  to  settle.  His  conscience 
makes  him  just,  and  his  affections  go  further  and  make 
him  generous  also,  for  generosity  is  justice  plus  kind- 
ness. 

At  the  bottom  of  all  there  lies  piety, —  the  universal 
love  of  the  first  good,  first  perfect,  and  first  fair,  the 
love  of  God,  "  who  is  of  all  Creator  and  defense." 
The  good  man  ma^^  not  be  alwaj^s  conscious  of  this 
piety ;  there  have  been  cases  where  such  have  called 
themselves  atheists,  that  ugliest  of  all  names.  But, 
depend  upon  it,  piety  is  always  there  at  the  bottom  of 
all  goodness ;  for  piety  is  not  that  merel}'  technical 
and  special  thing  which  it  is  sometimes  mistaken  for, 


266      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

but  it  is  that  general  steadfastness  and  intcgrit}',  that 
faithfulness,  which  is  to  a  man  what  pei-pendicularity 
is  to  a  wall  or  a  column,  what  solidarity  and  impenetra- 
bility are  to  matter  in  general.  If  a  pyramid  stands 
six  thousand  years,  and  never  cracks  in  a  single  stone, 
you  will  be  pretty  sure  that  it  rests  on  a  good  bottom, 
even  if  the  pyramid  does  not  know  it,  nor  know  what 
it  stands  on. 

If  I  were  to  express  the  proportions  of  goodness  by 
figures,  I  would  call  the  complete  goodness  ten ;  and 
piety  would  be  four  parts,  justice  two,  sincerity  one, 
and  benevolence  three. 

I  suppose  many  of  us  are  a  little  disappointed  with 
mankind.  The  world  of  the  girl's  dream  is  not  the 
world  of  a  young  woman's  actual  sight  and  touch,  and 
still  less  is  it  so  of  the  woman  no  longer  young.  In 
the  moonlight  of  dreamy  youth,  as  we  look  out  of  the 
windows,  and  rejoice  in  the  blooming  apple-trees,  how 
different  does  the  world  seem  from  what  we  find  it  the 
next  day,  when,  in  the  heat  of  a  May  sun,  we  go  about 
and  remove  the  caterpillars  from  the  scrubby  trees.  A 
boy  bred  in  a  wealthy  family  in  a  little  village,  se- 
cluded from  the  eyes  of  men,  filling  his  consciousness 
with  nature  and  the  reflection  of  human  life  which 
deep  poems  and  this  great  magnificent  Bible  and  other 
religious  books  miiTor  down  into  his  own  soul,  goes 
out  into  the  world,  and  finds  things  very  different  from 
what  they  appeared  when  seen  through  the  windows 
of  the  home  which  his  father's  and  mother's  affection 
colored  with  the  rose  and  violet  of  their  own  nature. 
A  young  minister  bred  in  a  frugal,  literary,  and  re- 
ligious home,  living  a  quiet  life,  has  rather  a  hard 
experience  when  he  comes  to  his  actual  work, —  the 
world  seems  so  different  from  what  he  dreamed  it  was, 


POWER  AND  ENDURANCE  267 

and  he  encounters  so  much  covetousness,  hypocrisy, 
selfishness  in  its  many  forms.  "  It  is  a  very  bad 
world,"  says  he,  looking  at  it  with  eyes  too  pure  for 
iniquity,  across  the  New  Testament.  "  If  it  appears 
so  to  me,  how  damnable  it  must  look  to  God,  in  whose 
sight  the  very  heavens  are  not  clean,  and  who  charges 
the  angels  with  folly."  So  some  night,  after  preach- 
ing, as  he  walks  home  through  the  darkness,  discour- 
aged and  despairing,  and  looks  up  to  the  stars,  so  old 
and  so  young,  so  heavenly  bright,  so  distant,  yet 
looking  so  large  and  near  and  familiar, —  he  says, 
"  What  is  man  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him,  and  the 
son  of  man  that  thou  regardest  him.'^ "  And  his 
womanly  wife,  who  walks  close  at  his  side,  whose 
"  meddling  intellect "  does  not  "  misshape  the  form 
of  things,"  but,  like  a  star  itself,  lets  God  shine 
through  her  and  sparkle  out  of  her,  answers  him,  say- 
ing, "  He  made  him  a  little  lower  than  the  angels." 
But  after  our  man  has  learned  to  orient  himself  in  the 
universe,  knowing  which  way  the  east  is,  after  the 
moonlight  has  gone,  and  he  has  removed  the  caterpil- 
lars from  the  apple-trees,  and  has  felt  the  summer, 
and  draws  towards  the  appointed  weeks  of  harvest, 
and  sees  the  same  branches  which  the  caterpillars  ate 
in  the  spring  now  bending  down  with  great  rosy 
apples, —  things  look  more  hopeful,  and  he  finds  a 
great  deal  of  goodness  which  he  did  not  expect. 

We  find  that  much  of  the  wickedness  we  see  is  only 
a  chance-shot,  the  gun  went  off  before  the  man  was 
ready.  In  human  action  there  is  always  more  virtue 
of  every  kind  than  vice,  more  industry  than  idleness, 
more  thrift  than  spendthrift,  more  temperance  than 
intemperance,  more  wisdom  than  folly.  Even  the 
American  politician  docs  not  tell  so  many  lies  as  he 


268   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

tells  truths.  Sincerity  is  more  common  than  hypo- 
crisy ;  no  nation  is  ever  affected ;  the  mass  of  men  are 
in  real  earnest.  All  the  natural  trees  grow  solid  all 
the  way  through;  they  have  bark  on  them,  but  it  is 
a  real  bark,  there  is  no  veneering  of  mahogany  on  any 
northern  pine.  Even  the  hypocrisy  which  a  man  var- 
nishes himself  withal  is  only  the  homage  which  he  pays 
to  the  virtue  he  imitates.  It  is  a  gilt  jewel;  he  does 
not  like  to  pay  the  price  of  the  gold  one;  the  gilt 
jewel  is  a  testimonial  that  he  would  like  to  have  the 
gold  one  if  it  did  not  cost  too  much.  There  is  more 
conscious  justice  than  conscious  injustice  in  the  world, 
more  trust  than  jealousy,  more  peace  than  war,  more 
men  who  help  the  good  time  coming  than  men  who 
stave  it  off,  more  piety  than  impiety,  more  goodness 
than  badness.  In  all  the  world,  mankind  never  put 
up  a  single  gravestone  to  evil,  as  such.  There  are 
many  temples,  no  doubt,  which  are  made  dens  of 
thieves,  but  they  were  all  built  as  houses  for  the 
Father,  not  one  of  them  ever  dedicated  to  the  devil. 
The  Christian  year,  as  put  down  in  the  calendar  of 
the  Catholics  and  Episcopalians,  is  full  of  saints ;  but 
nobody  ever  publishes  the  Devil's  Calendar,  full  of 
wicked  men.  No  man  will  ever  write  on  his  father's 
tomb,  "  He  was  an  eminent  slave-trader."  Mr.  Ma- 
son's sons  will  not  write  on  his  tombstone,  "  Author  of 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill."  No  miserable  minister  who, 
for  the  meanest  fee,  shall  stand  in  some  pulpit,  and 
preach  funeral  eulogies  on  such  wicked  men,  will  praise 
them  for  deeds  of  this  kind ;  he  will  try  to  varnish  them 
over,  and  say  they  were  mistakes. 

All  these  things  show  how  constantly  the  good  pre- 
ponderates in  mankind.  Do  you  doubt  this?  Some- 
times it  does  not  seem  so,  but  it  all  becomes  plain  from 


POWER  AND  ENDURANCE  269 

this  great  fact,  that  mankind  continually  improves ; 
for  nothing  is  clearer  than  this,  that  the  human  race 
is  perpetually  advancing  in  all  sorts  of  virtue.  Those 
Adams  and  Eves  whom  God  sent  into  the  world,  naked 
and  rough  and  savage  as  a  wild  ass's  colt,  have  grown 
up  to  a  quiet,  respectable  civilization,  and  dotted  the 
world  over  with  monuments  of  human  excellence.  Soon 
as  a  scholar  studies  history,  his  common  sense  sees 
this  great  fact,  that  the  human  tree  grows  up  out 
of  the  ground,  not  down  into  it,  and  at  each  recurring 
White  Sunday  it  is  more  beautiful  with  blossoms,  and 
heavier  laden  with  apples  at  each  harvest.  It  would 
be  a  sorry  impeachment  of  the  great  God  to  charge 
upon  Him  that  the  world  was  made  so  badly  that  the 
wheels  could  never  overcome  their  friction.  Take  the 
world,  and  you  see  no  great  improvement  from  month 
to  month,  or  perhaps  from  year  to  year.  Look  at  a 
star  for  ten  minutes,  and  it  does  not  seem  to  have 
moved  at  all ;  look  at  it  at  six  o'clock  and  then  again  at 
twelve,  and  you  will  see  that  it  has  changed  immensely. 
So  look  at  mankind  from  one  hundred  years  to  another, 
and  you  see  what  progress  Christendom  has  made. 

But  not  to  look  over  so  wide  a  field,  what  does  any 
man  see  in  his  little  sphere  of  observation?  Truth 
prevailing  over  error,  right  over  wrong,  piety  over 
impiety,  goodness  over  wickedness.  The  seed  of  good- 
ness does  not  come  up  very  quick,  but  it  never  rots  in 
the  soil ;  it  comes  up  at  last.  It  does  not  grow  very 
swiftly  at  first,  but  it  does  grow  stout  and  stocky, 
as  the  farmers  say  of  good  substantial  corn.  When  I 
see  a  young  man  with  any  truth  that  others  have  not, 
any  justice,  any  kindly  charity,  any  higher  degree 
of  piety,  I  am  sure  that  he  will  prevail,  just  as  cer- 
tainly as  that  the  best  com  will  ultimately  be  planted 


270      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

by  the  fanner,  bought  by  the  miller,  and  eaten  hy  the 
rest  of  mankind.  Let  a  little  modest  minister  to  the 
smallest  audience  utter  some  new  truth,  propose  some 
better  form  of  religion,  and  though  the  timid  man 
clutches  the  pulpit  cushion,  and  does  not  dare  look 
the  church  members  in  the  face,  while  his  cheek  turns 
pale,  and  his  eye  flashes  with  unwonted  light,  though 
all  the  ministerial  associations  shall  cry,  "  Away  with 
such  a  fellow ! " —  I  go  up  to  him  and  say,  "  Fear 
not !  Humanity  is  on  your  side,  and  if  the  swine 
trample  your  pearls  under  their  feet,  do  not  mind  it ;  it 
is  because  they  know  no  better;  one  day  the  human 
race  will  sift  the  ground  under  your  feet,  and  gather 
even  the  dust  of  the  pearls  and  fashion  it  into  beauty 
to  wear  about  humanity's  neck  as  an  ornament."  The 
team  of  elements  carries  you  swiftly  over  iron  roads, 
where  oxen  once  slowly  dragged  you  along;  and  just 
so  it  is  with  all  goodness.  It  is  certain  to  come  up 
when  it  is  planted,  sure  to  grow  and  to  live  forever. 
All  this  shows  the  superiority  of  the  good  in  the  hu- 
man race  over  the  evil  therein.  The  swine  that  is 
washed  may  return  to  his  wallowing  in  the  mire ;  it  is 
his  element ;  but  the  man,  when  the  devil  has  been  cast 
out,  haunts  the  tombs  no  longer,  crying,  and  cutting 
himself  with  stones.  Perfection  is  the  pole-star  of 
humanity,  and  our  little  needle  has  its  dip,  and  its 
variation,  and  sometimes  declines  from  the  pole,  now 
at  this  angle,  then  at  that, 

"  But,  though  it  trembles  as  it  lowly  lies, 
Points  to  that  light  which  changes  not  in  heaven." 

These  are  very  encouraging  things.  But  without 
looking  so  far  as  that,  I  am  often  sti*uck  with  the 
amount  of  goodness  all  around  me.     Sometimes  in  a 


POWER  AND  ENDURANCE  271 

railroad  car  by  night  I  love  to  people  the  hours  by 
counting  up  the  good  men  and  women  I  know  in  all 
walks  of  life,  and  in  all  denominations  of  Christians, 
and  some  not  Christian,  and  not  Hebrew  even,  who 
have  no  religious  name  whatever,  but  who  have  so  much 
religion  in  them  that  they  have  not  counted  it  yet. 
After  all,  there  is  only  one  religion,  just  as  there  is  but 
one  ocean,  and  though  you  call  it  Noi-th  Ocean,  South 
Ocean,  Atlantic,  Pacific,  it  is  still  only  one  water.  In 
some  places  it  is  deep,  in  others  shallow ;  here  it  is 
cold,  there  warm ;  it  is  troubled  here,  smooth  there ; 
still  it  is  always  the  same  ocean,  and  the  chemical 
qualities  of  the  water  are  still  the  same.  When  I  run 
over  the  moral  inventory  of  the  persons  I  know,  I  am 
astonished  to  find  how  many  good  men  and  women 
there  are,  and  what  a  little  dear  kingdom  of  heaven 
is  about  us  all  the  time,  though  we  take  small  account 
of  it. 

I  love  to  look  for  some  excellence  amongst  bad  men, 
and  almost  always  find  it.  There  is  no  dead  sea  of  hu- 
manity an3^where.  Though  you  toil  all  night  and 
catch  nothing,  in  some  lucky  moment  you  throw  over 
on  the  right  side  of  the  ship,  and  presently  your  net 
breaks  with  the  draught  of  fishes,  only  not  miraculous. 
Those  Boston  men  who  in  Congress  voted  for  the  Fu- 
gitive Slave  Bill,  do  no  such  thing  in  private,  but  both 
of  them  contributed  honest  money  to  hide  the  out- 
cast, and  carry  him  where  the  stripes  of  America  shall 
never  keep  him  from  the  stars  of  freedom.  There 
are  many  depraved  things  done  without  any  conscious 
depravity. 

See  how  many  good  things  are  continually  coming 
to  pass.  Not  long  since  this  circumstance  came  to  my 
knowledge.     A  Maryland  woman  lost  her  husband,  a 


272   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

"  fast  man,"  who  spent  more  readily  than  he  earned. 
He  had  the  reputation  of  wealth,  but  when  his  estate 
came  to  be  settled,  there  was  no  property  remaining 
but  sixteen  slaves.  His  widow,  a  kind-hearted  woman, 
hired  these  persons  out,  and  lived  very  comfortably  on 
their  earnings.  One  day  it  occurred  to  her  that  it 
was  a  little  hard  for  her  to  be  living  on  the  earnings 
of  these  persons,  to  whom  she  contributed  nothing. 
She  asked  one  of  the  most  sensible  of  them  what  she 
thought  of  it,  saying,  "  Would  you  like  to  be  free .'' 
Why  don't  you  run  away  ?  "  "  We  had  thought  of 
it,"  was  the  answer,  "  and  some  of  us  came  together 
and  talked  it  over,  but  we  said  you  had  no  property 
excepting  us,  and  we  did  not  like  to  bring  you  upon 
the  town."  The  good  woman  was  so  much  struck 
with  this  that  that  day  she  set  them  free.  Some 
offered  to  bring  back  their  wages  to  her.  She  is  now 
supporting  herself  with  her  needle.  This  shows  an 
amount  of  self-denial  that  very  few  men  would  be 
willing  to  come  to.  One  of  our  countrywomen,  who 
has  traveled  the  United  States  over,  making  exploring 
expeditions  of  loving-kindness  and  tender  mercy,  pass- 
ing through  wildernesses  and  deserts  that  burned  with 
vice,  in  order  to  establish  hospitals  for  the  insane  and 
lift  up  the  poor,  was  once  robbed  of  her  purse  by  a 
highwayman  in  Georgia,  who  gave  it  back  to  her  when 
he  found  it  was  Miss  Dix,  scorning  to  rob  such  a 
woman.  Need  I  mention  again  that  woman  whose  hu- 
manity seems  sweetest  in  the  wintry  darkness  of 
Crimean  war,  that  Nightingale  of  mercy  who  makes 
perpetual  spring  and  summer  in  the  desolate  camp  of 
the  soldier  .'^  No  star  shines  so  beautifully  as  a  good 
deed  in  a  naughty  world,  and  there  is  not  a  street  in 
Boston,  however  short,  not  a  lane,  however  dirty,  but 


POWER  AND  ENDURANCE  273 

some  window  thereof  burns  with  that  hght  wliich 
shines  in  the  darkness,  though  the  darkness  compre- 
hendeth  it  not.  If  a  wrong  is  done  to  anybody,  some- 
body by  and  by  finds  it  out.  Men  scourge  the  apostle 
of  humanity  in  the  market-place,  but  there  is  always 
some  good  woman,  some  kind  man,  to  wash  the  apos- 
tle's stripes  and  bind  up  his  bruises,  and  lay  healing 
herbs  of  grace  on  the  tortured  flesh,  and  carry  a  sooth- 
ing balm  to  the  soul  that  smarts,  but  will  not  forbear 
from  its  work ;  and  when  the  martyr  dies,  somebody 
gathers  up  his  ashes  and  sows  them  as  seeds  of  good- 
ness, one  day  to  blossom  all  round  the  religious  world. 
How  many  good  men  you  find,  always  taking  offices 
of  charitable  trust  which  bring  no  money  or  honor, 
but  who  will  not  be  forgotten  in  the  recompense  of 
the  just  men  whose  hearts  grow  white  and  blossom  with 
benevolence  as  they  grow  old.  How  many  good 
Samaritans  there  are  in  the  world,  always  happening 
to  pass  where  somebody  lies  fallen  among  thieves. 

I  love  to  walk  through  a  library  full  of  old  books, 
tlie  works  of  mighty  men  who  once  shook  the  ground 
under  them ;  yet  all  forgotten  now ;  and  I  think  how 
rich-minded  the  human  race  is  when  it  can  afford  to 
let  such  intellect  lie,  and  never  miss  that  wealth.  But 
goodness  is  hid  much  oftener  than  great  intellect.  I 
do  not  mean  that  it  is  hid  in  its  action,  but  from  men's 
sight.  But  for  each  man  of  this  stamp,  there  are 
several  women.  There  is  no  town  but  has  many  sisters 
to  every  Lazarus,  generous  mothers,  kindly  aunts, 
faithful  friends,  whose  footsteps  are  like  those  of 
spring,  flowery  to-day,  in  some  weeks  fruitful, —  those 
who  leave  tracks  of  benevolence  all  through  the  cold 
and  drifted  snow  of  selfishness  which  piles  the  streets 
of  a  great  metropolis.  It  is  these  persons,  women 
XI— 18 


274   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

and  men,  who  carry  on  the  great  movements  of  man- 
kind. They  clear  and  till  the  fields  where  some  Moses, 
Jesus,  Paul,  or  Luther  gathers  an  abundant  harvest, 
brought  home  amid  the  shouting  of  the  people,  "  Ho- 
sanna !  Hosanna ! "  The  topstone  of  yonder  monu- 
ment is  only  the  highest  because  it  rests  on  every 
block  underneath,  and  the  lowest  and  smallest  helps  to 
hold  it  up ;  only  the  foundation  was  laid  with  sweat 
and  sore  toil,  while  the  capstone  was  hoisted  to  its 
place  amid  the  shouting  of  multitudes.  It  is  in  this 
way  that  all  the  great  humanities  are  carried  forward. 
They  advance  most  rapidly  in  New  England,  because 
we  have  more  men  and  women  of  this  stamp  amongst 
us  than  elsewhere  are  to  be  found  in  the  world.  No- 
body knows  the  power  of  a  good  woman,  in  the  quiet 
duties  of  her  home,  where  she  is  wife,  mother,  sister, 
aunt ;  and  in  the  neighborly  charities  of  the  street  and 
village  she  sets  afoot  powers  of  excellence  which  run 
and  are  not  weary,  or  walk  and  never  faint. 

You  and  I  may  not  have  much  intellectual  power; 
perhaps  our  thought  will  never  fill  the  world's  soul,  nor 
guide  the  world's  helm ;  we  may  not  have  reason  enough 
to  dig  down  to  the  roots  of  things,  nor  imagination 
enough  to  reach  up  to  the  fruits  and  flowers,  nor  mem- 
ory to  reach  back  to  the  causes,  nor  prophetic  power 
to  reach  forward  to  their  consequences.  But  all  the 
little  space  within  our  reach  we  can  occupy  with  good- 
ness, and  then  the  whole  house  will  be  filled  with  the 
fragrant  beauty  of  our  incense,  which  we  offer  towards 
man,  and  which  steals  up  as  a  welcome  sacrifice  towards 
God.  In  a  wintry  day,  I  have  sometimes  found  a 
geranium  in  some  poor  woman's  kitchen,  and  it  filled 
the  whole  house  with  its  sweet  fragrance.  So  it  is 
with  this   goodness.     Piety   is  the  root  of  all  manly 


POWER  AND  ENDURANCE  275 

excellence,  and  it  branches  out  into  a  great  many 
things.  How  you  and  I  can  increase  this  goodness 
in  ourselves,  and  then  in  the  world;  for,  though  the 
bodily  power  is  capable  of  great  increase  and  develop- 
ment, and  you  see  the  odds  between  the  thrifty  hand 
of  the  mechanic  and  the  clumsy  hand  of  the  Irish 
clown ;  though  the  intellectual  power  is  capable  of 
wondrous  culture,  as  you  see  how  the  use  which  the 
well-bred  scholar  makes  of  his  intellect  differs  from  the 
clumsy  attainment  which  the  poor  ignorant  man  can 
only  reach, —  yet  neither  the  cunning  hand  nor  the 
cunning  brain  of  man  is  capable  of  such  immense  de- 
velopment as  those  moral,  affectional,  and  religious 
faculties  whose  fairest,  sweetest  blossom  is  what  we 
call  goodness.  And  what  you  and  I  set  on  foot  for 
ourselves,  ere  long  belongs  to  the  whole  world.  This 
is  the  precious  privilege  which  God  gives  us,  that  when 
we  attain  it  for  ourselves,  we  win  it  for  the  whole 
human  race,  and  though  when  we  go  thitherward  we 
carry  the  fragrance  of  our  flower  along  with  us,  its 
seeds  drop  into  the  ground,  and  live  forever  on  the 
earth  to  bless  mankind. 

DISINTERESTED  PHILANTHROPY 

Sir  Robert  Peel,  cradled  in  affluence,  in  a  famous 
speech  in  Parliament,  declared  that  he  had  no  belief 
in  disinterested  philanthropy.  You  can  hardly  find 
a  respectable  mechanic,  a  respectable  trader,  an  ear- 
nest man  or  woman  in  the  middle  class  of  society,  who 
does  not  believe  in  disinterested  philanthropy,  who  does 
not  practise  it  almost  every  day,  and  that  too  as  a 
religious  practice.  The  circumstances  which  are 
about  the  industrious  class  help  call  into  play  this 
belief    and    practice    of    disinterested    philanthropy. 


276      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

Serious  men  who  feel  the  sore  travail  of  the  world,  and 
eat  honest  bread  which  they  have  got  by  the  sweat 
of  their  brow  or  the  toil  of  their  brain,  will  not  be 
content  to  have  religion  a  mere  emotion  in  their 
heart,  a  delicious  dream  of  devotion,  a  rhapsody  of 
love  to  God.  It  must  be  also  love  to  man.  They 
will  never  be  quite  content  with  mere  routine,  with  a 
mere  form  of  ritual  words  and  ritual  worship ;  both 
must  lead  to  a  form  of  actual,  practical  life  with  them. 

PHILANTHROPY  SHALL  PREVAIL 

The  thing  for  which  I  most  fervently  send  up  my 
thanks  to  God  is  the  increase  of  piety  and  love  towards 
the  Infinite  God  of  perfection,  and  that  this  piety  takes 
the  form  of  philanthropy,  and  what  is  abstract  love 
of  God  becomes  concrete  love  of  man.  Let  us  give 
thanks  by  putting  our  piety  in  this  noble  and  lovely 
form.  Be  sure  we  are  to  triumph ;  not  to-day,  not 
to-morrow ;  but  as  the  sun  struggles  with  the  darkness 
of  the  dawn,  and  triumphs  over  the  clouds,  and  at  last 
sends  his  meridian  beams  down  upon  the  ground,  so 
shall  human  philanthropy  triumph  over  the  malignity, 
the  darkness,  and  ignorance  of  men,  and  the  angels 
below  shall  co-work  with  the  angels  above,  and  God's 
kingdom  come  down  here  on  the  earth. 

Let  men  laugh  when  you  sacrifice  desire  to  duty,  if 
they  will.     You  have  time  and  eternity  to  rejoice  in. 

GREAT  BENEFACTORS  UNRECOGNIZED 

If  you  should  go  Into  a  garden.  Ignorant  of  botany, 
you  would  see  many  plants  seemingly  of  no  value,  and 
only  a  cost,  but  which  yet  turn  out  precious  herbs  or 
produce  rare  flowers,  whose  beauty  Is  their  own  excuse 


POWER  AND  ENDURANCE  277 

for  being,  and  excuse  enough  beside.  So  in  the  gar- 
den of  mankind,  which  God  only  understands,  there  are 
various  employments  which  seem  at  first  to  be  of  no 
value,  but  which  turn  out  to  be  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance. 

When  Socrates  left  off  stone-cutting,  and  went  to 
teach  philosophy  at  Athens,  it  seemed  as  if  he  did  not 
earn  the  poor  pulse  he  ate  and  the  sorry  garments  he 
continued  to  wear ;  but  it  turned  out  that  his  talk  was 
the  most  valuable  work  done  in  that  generation. 
Socrates  carved  out  great  statues  of  thought,  and  set 
up  colossal  figures  of  men  along  the  highway  of  life, 
to  freshen  and  inspire  us  forever. 

When  Archimedes  at  Syracuse,  an  apparent  loun- 
ger, with  a  large  head  and  thoughtful  face,  and  brow 
serene  as  midnight,  spent  his  days  in  drawing  figures 
in  the  sand,  circles  and  spheres  and  sines  and  cosines 
and  tangents,  I  take  it  that  the  fishermen  in  the  bay 
thought  he  was  a  fool,  and  not  worth  the  flounders 
he  ate ;  but  when  Syracuse  was  besieged  by  an  enemy, 
that  man  was  the  king  of  the  nation,  and  reaching  a 
huge  arm  of  wood  over  the  walls  of  the  city,  he  twisted 
and  twirled  and  tumbled  the  ships  of  the  foe  to  pieces ; 
and  then  men  began  to  understand  better  the  work  of 
the  head. 

In  later  years,  when  Galvani  hung  up  the  leg  of  a 
frog  on  an  iron  fence,  and  noticed  the  muscles  twitch, 
his  servants  no  doubt  thought  he  was  an  idler  and  a 
fool ;  but  that  was  the  first  step  in  the  discovery  which 
now  sends  thought  from  Nova  Scotia  to  New  Orleans 
as  quick  as  thought. 

When  Homer  strolled  from  village  to  village,  sing- 
ing for  his  supper  as  he  went,  no  doubt  the  cheeseman, 
as  he  trundled  his  wares  from  one  place  to  another. 


278   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

thought  Homer  a  dismal  drone,  and  grudged  the  poet 
a  lodging  in  his  barn ;  but  the  "  wondrous  tale  of 
Troy  divine  "  comes  down  through  the  ages  as  a  strain 
of  sweet  music,  now  so  trumpet-like,  and  then  so  lyri- 
cal, that  the  poor  farmer's  boy  beguiles  the  weary 
labors  of  the  plough  by  singing  it,  and  others  catch 
up  the  strain  and  speed  it  on  to  millions  more,  until 
his  high  thoughts,  swept  into  music  on  the  ten  strings 
of  his  sounding  lyre,  have  become  commonplaces  to 
all  men. 

When  Moses  left  the  keeping  of  Jethro's  sheep  in 
Midian,  and  went  into  the  mountain,  no  doubt  the 
shepherds  thought  he  was  a  fool ;  and  when  he  was 
alone  on  the  mountain  for  forty  days  and  forty  nights, 
the  men  of  Israel  thought  he  was  asleep  or  a  lounger ; 
but  when  he  came  back  with  the  Ten  Commandments 
in  his  head,  he  proved  that  there  was  another  kind  of 
work  besides  tending  cattle. 

So  when  that  young  carpenter  of  Nazareth  left  his 
tools,  probably  the  sandal-maker  of  Nazareth  might 
have  said,  "  He  will  never  earn  his  shoes  with  all  his 
preaching."  But  from  that  young  carpenter  of 
Nazareth  came  those  blessed  Beatitudes  which  have 
planted  the  seed  of  piety  in  many  a  million  hearts, 
and  which  will  never  be  forgotten  as  long  as  man  shall 
endure. 

Thus  from  Socrates,  and  Archimedes,  and  GalvanI, 
and  Homer,  and  Moses,  and  Christ,  comes  the  work  of 
the  world.  In  the  great  machine  of  human  society, 
only  God  knows  all  the  wheels,  and  many  kinds  of  work 
are  done  by  men  whose  various  modes  of  operation 
we  know  not.  All  kinds  of  real  work  then  should  we 
honor.  This  man  plays  with  lightning,  and  brings 
nothing  to  pass ;  but  his  son  after  him  takes  the  mail 


POWER  AND  ENDURANCE  279 

through  the  air.  This  man  plays  with  soap-bubbles, 
and  men  laugh  at  him ;  but  his  son  perchance  may 
carry  us  where  his  predecessor  carries  the  mail.  Thus 
persons  apparently  of  no  value  may  be  perhaps  of 
great  service  to  the  race  of  men  if  they  work  diligently 
after  their  kind. 

NO  GOOD  THING  LOST 

Mankind  never  loses  any  good  thing,  physical,  in- 
tellectual, or  moral,  till  it  finds  a  better,  and  then  the 
loss  is  a  gain.  "  No  steps  backward  "  is  the  rule  of  hu- 
man history.  What  is  gained  by  one  man  is  invested 
in  all  men,  and  is  a  permanent  investment  for  all  time. 
What  a  careless  nation  drops  and  runs  by,  another 
carefully  picks  up  and  carries  forward,  if  it  be  of  any 
service.  No  nation  gives  up  clothes  for  the  sake  of 
primeval  nakedness ;  nor  houses  of  stone,  brick,  and 
wood  for  a  hole  in  the  ground  and  hollow  trees ;  none 
ever  abandons  wheaten  bread,  the  result  of  toil  and 
thought,  for  the  sake  of  acorns  and  wild  peanuts. 

A  great  genius  discovers  a  truth  in  science,  the  phi- 
losophy of  matter;  or  in  philosophy,  the  science  of 
man.  He  la^'s  it  at  the  feet  of  humanity,  and  care- 
fully she  weighs  in  her  hand  what  was  so  costly  to 
him,  and  is  so  precious  to  her.  She  keeps  it  forever; 
he  may  be  forgot,  but  his  truth  is  a  part  of  the  breath 
of  humankind.  By  a  process  more  magical  than 
magic  it  becomes  the  property  of  all  men,  and  that 
forever. 

Kepler  had  some  of  the  most  whimsical  theories  that 
ever  entered  into  the  mind  of  man ;  but  he  discerned 
three  great  general  laws  which  govern  the  heavenly 
bodies.  His  whims  all  perish ;  it  is  only  here  and  there 
that  some  black-lcttcr  scholar  has  found  them  out ;  but 


S80   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

his  laws  find  their  place  in  the  humblest  manual  of 
astronomy,  are  used  in  every  school  of  New  England, 
and  will  never  be  forgot. 

WyclifFe  started  the  Reformation  in  the  fourteenth 
century, —  a  single  monk  in  his  cell  at  Oxford  teach- 
ing the  great  truths  of  Protestantism.  He  died  in 
1384,  and  it  seemed  as  if  the  truths  he  started  perished 
with  him.  Forty-four  years  after,  the  Council  of 
Constance  ordered  his  bones  to  be  dug  up  and  burned. 
There  was  not  much  left  of  the  thin  man  in  the  little 
churchyard  at  Lutterworth;  but  the  Bishop  of  Lin- 
coln sent  his  officers  —  vultures  with  a  quick  scent 
at  a  dead  carcass  —  to  ungrave  him.  To  the  spot 
they  came,  they  took  what  little  they  could  find,  and 
burnt  it  to  ashes,  and  cast  it  into  the  Swift,  a  little 
brook  running  hard  by,  and  they  thought  they  had 
made  away  both  with  his  bones  and  his  doctrines. 
How  does  it  turn  out  ?  An  historian  says  thus :  — 
*'  The  brook  took  them  into  the  Avon,  the  Avon  into 
the  Severn,  the  Severn  into  the  narrow  seas,  they  into 
the  main  ocean, —  and  thus  the  ashes  of  WyclifFe  are 
the  emblems  of  his  doctrine,  which  is  now  dispersed 
all  the  world  over."  It  did  not  lie  in  the  power  of 
the  Council  of  Constance,  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  and 
his  officials,  to  hide  one  single  truth  from  the  conscious- 
ness of  mankind.  Let  men  hear  once,  and  the  word 
roots  into  that  soil  forever. 

In  some  little  New  England  village  there  comes  up 
a  dear  feminine  flower  of  wisdom  and  philanthropy, 
and  by  and  by  the  whole  town  is  fragrant  with  that 
blossom,  and  the  children  who  are  bom  there  a  hun- 
dred years  later  are  better  born  than  elsewhere  in  the 
surrounding  towns,  because  that  woman  passed  through 
the  village  and  spread  the  sweetness  of  her  character 


POWER  AND  ENDURANCE  281 

in  the  very  air,  and  it  shamed  vulgar  men  and  women 
out  of  their  coarse  obscenity,  and  lifted  them  up  when 
they  knew  it  not.  Florence  Nightingale,  Dorothea 
Dix,  and  their  noble  company  of  similar  good  angels 
who  bless  the  world,  will  all  die,  but  the  style  of  char- 
acter which  they  represent  will  never  die.  It  will  go 
on  increasing  and  enlarging,  till  it  fills  all  Christen- 
dom with  its  sweet  and  blessed  influence. 

AIX  EXCELLENCE  IS  PERPETUAL 

A  man  gets  a  new  truth,  a  new  idea  of  justice,  a 
new  sentiment  of  religion,  and  it  is  a  seed  out  of  the 
flower  of  God,  something  from  the  innate  substance 
of  the  Infinite  Father;  for  truth,  justice,  love,  and 
faith  in  the  bosom  of  man  are  higher  manifestations 
of  God  than  the  barren  zone  of  yonder  sun,  fairer 
revelations  of  him  than  all  the  brave  grandeur  of  yon- 
der sky.  Well,  this  seed  from  the  flower  of  God  takes 
root  in  the  soul  of  man,  and  it  can  never  be  dislodged 
or  rent  away ;  while  every  plant  which  the  Heavenly 
Father  has  not  planted  is  destined  to  be  plucked  up. 
No  truth  fades  out  of  science,  no  justice  out  of  poli- 
tics, no  love  out  of  the  community,  nor  out  of  the 
family.  The  sage,  the  saint,  or  the  poet,  gets  a  scion 
from  the  tree  of  life  and  grafts  it  on  the  wild  stock 
of  human  nature.  It  grows  apace,  flowers  every 
spring,  and  fruits  every  autumn,  and  never  fades 
away ;  more  than  that,  ere  long  it  sucks  all  the  life  out 
of  the  wild  ingrafted  branches,  and  itself  becomes  the 
tree.  A  great  man  rises,  shines  a  few  years,  and  pres- 
ently his  body  goes  to  the  grave,  and  his  spirit  to  the 
home  of  the  soul.  But  no  particles  of  the  great  man 
are  ever  lost ;  they  are  not  condensed  into  another 
great  man,  they  are  spread  abroad.     There  is  more 


282      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

Washington  in  America  now  than  when  he  who  bore 
the  name  stood  at  the  nation's  head.  Ever  since  Christ 
died  there  has  been  a  growth  of  the  Christ-hke ;  there 
is  a  thousand  times  more  of  Jesus  now  on  the  earth 
than  when  the  Marys  stood  at  his  feet.  Once  there 
was  httle  corn  in  the  world,  and  a  woman's  lap  might 
have  held  all  the  seed  of  the  bread  which  now  feeds 
the  earth.  Righteousness  grows  like  corn, —  that  out 
of  the  soil,  this  out  of  the  soul.  Let  a  man  have  more 
truth,  more  justice,  more  love,  more  piety  than  other 
men,  and  the  world  cannot  get  rid  of  him ;  he  rides  on 
the  shoulders  of  mankind,  and  they  cannot  cast  him  off. 
Nobody  can  write  him  down,  or  howl  him  down ;  only 
himself  can  write  himself  down ;  and  he  can  never 
write  down  a  single  truth  nor  a  single  grain  of  justice 
he  has  once  given  expression  to ;  it  is  insured  at  the 
bank  of  the  Infinite  God.  Peters  may  deny,  and 
Judases  sell,  and  Arnolds  turn  traitors ;  but  the  truth 
goes  on  with  the  irresistible  gravitation  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  the  silent  laws  of  God  conduct  it  onward 
to  its  triumph. 

GOOD  NOT  LOST  AMIDST  THE  BAD 

There  is  good  in  the  worst  of  men ;  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  good  amongst  them.  In  Fagin's  den  of 
thieves  Mr.  Dickens  paints  a  sweet,  beautiful  creature, 
as  clear  as  a  sunbeam,  and  not  less  benevolent ;  and 
he  is  true  to  nature.  In  a  great  tragedy  of  ^Eschylus 
or  Shakespeare,  while  in  one  scene  there  is  a  con- 
spiracy, a  murder,  or  a  revolution,  trial,  sentence,  in 
the  next  there  will  be  some  sweet  love-scene,  tender 
and  woosome,  and  most  elevating.  As  after  funeral 
marches  heavily  beat  on  muffled  drums,  or  painfully 
played  by  horns  gagged  by  the  players,  the  returning 


POWER  AND  ENDURANCE  283 

soldiers  step  to  lively  and  more  stirring  tunes,  so 
among  the  worst  of  men  there  are  little  spots  of  heav- 
enly, human  sunshine, —  a  faithful  wife,  daughter, 
mother;  nay,  perhaps  a  son  who  redeems  the  ugliness 
of  his  father.  Were  not  Abraham  and  righteous  Lot 
found  in  the  midst  of  Sodom?  And  Sodom  could  not 
go  under  in  fire  and  brimstone  till  these  sweet  angel- 
men  had  marched  out.  Was  not  upright  Nathan,  bold 
as  a  star,  found  in  cruel  David's  wicked  court.''  Did 
not  Christ  come  out  of  Galilee.'' 

EACH   INDIVIDUAL  EXCELLENCE  FOR  MANKIND'S 
BENEFIT 

Men  often  deceive  us ;  they  fail  from  weakness,  nay, 
from  badness.  We  often  deceive  ourselves.  Conven- 
tions are  not  what  we  could  wish;  the  election  disap- 
points us ;  revolutions  turn  out  badly,  as  it  seems. 
But  slowly,  continually,  forever,  truth  gains  over 
error,  justice  over  iniquity,  love  over  hate,  and  religion 
over  impiety.  It  is  not  much  that  any  man,  however 
great,  can  do  to  the  consciousness  of  mankind.  All 
that  Leibnitz,  or  Newton,  or  Bacon,  or  Luther,  added 
to  mankind  was  a  small  part  of  what  mankind  has. 
But  even  you  and  I  can  do  something  to  bring  about 
the  time  when  all  nations  shall  live  as  the  brothers  of 
one  family ;  for  every  effort  which  we  make  for  our 
own  countrymen  is  for  the  freedom  of  all  mankind; 
every  thing  that  you  do  for  the  education  of  the  mind, 
the  conscience,  the  heart,  and  the  soul  of  your  country, 
your  community,  your  family,  yourself,  is  so  much 
done  towards  the  education  of  all  mankind.  All  that 
you  do  for  industry,  philosophy,  science,  art,  for  tem- 
perance, for  peace,  yes,  all  that  you  do  for  piety  in 
your  own  heart  of  hearts, —  that  likewise  will  accrue 


284      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

to  the  advantage  of  mankind ;  for  every  atom  of  good- 
ness incarnated  in  a  single  girl  is  put  into  every 
person,  and  ere  long  spreads  wide  over  the  earth  to 
create  new  sunshine  and  beauty  everywhere.  Thus 
you  and  I  in  our  humble  sphere  may  work  with  the 
vast  agencies  of  humanity,  and  the  great  Father  in 
heaven  shall  work  with  us,  through  our  understanding, 
our  hearts,  our  prayers,  and  our  toil. 


VIII 
HUMAN  PROGRESS 

MAN  TO  MAKE  HIS  OWN   PARADISE 

As  you  look  on  the  world  inferior  to  man,  mineral, 
vegetable,  animal,  you  see  that  all  is  full  of  order. 
The  law  of  God  is  kept  throughout ;  the  actual  of 
nature  comes  completely  up  to  the  ideal  of  nature. 
Every  animal  has  internal  unity,  and  is  at  peace  with 
himself.  So  far  as  he  has  any  consciousness  at  all,  he 
has  integrity  of  consciousness.  His  little  dot  of  spirit 
is  surrounded  by  a  hedge  of  animal  instincts  so  high 
that  he  never  strays  abroad  and  is  lost.  Every  natu- 
ral beast  is  contented,  is  mainly  happy,  unhappy  only 
by  transient  fits,  permanently  at  peace.  It  never  vio- 
lates the  law  of  its  structure.  Its  general  nature  is 
the  individual  character  also.  The  wild  dog  is  never 
crazy ;  it  is  only  domestic  dogs  that  go  mad.  The 
ape  is  said  to  be  stupid;  but  stupid  is  no  reproach  to 
him,  no  source  of  pain;  he  brings  up  his  children  just 
as  well  as  the  Faculty  of  Harvard  College  could  do 
it  for  him  or  themselves.  No  wild  goose  is  idiotic  or 
a  simpleton.  If  dogs  delight  to  bark  and  bite,  it  is 
because  it  is  their  nature  to  do  so.  If  bears  and  lions 
growl  and  fight,  it  is  because  growling  and  fighting 
are  their  natural  functions.  No  one  of  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments which  God  published  on  His  Sinai  to  the 
beasts  is  ever  violated  by  dog  or  lion.  The  father 
alligator  eats  up  his  little  ones,  and  feels  no  remorse ; 
it  is  part  of  his  natural  food ;  the  mother  never  re- 
proaches him  for  his  taste ;  there  is  harm,  but  no 
wrong;  hurt,  but  never  injury.  Natural  instinct 
985 


286   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  :MAN 

keeps  the  police  of  the  animals  as  perfect  as  gravita- 
tion keeps  order  in  the  sky.  No  wild  bull  ever  op- 
presses the  herd  of  bulls  that  he  rules  over;  his 
administration  is  perfectly  constitutional ;  the  politics 
of  the  herd  are  all  made  for  them.  God  is  the  legis- 
lative, judiciary,  executive  power;  the  cattle  are  only 
tools,  factors  always,  agents  never.  No  wild  swine  is 
a  glutton ;  he  is  as  temperate  as  a  vegetarian.  With 
the  animals,  from  the  smallest  emmet  to  the  largest 
mastodon,  death  is  but  a  momentary  pang;  it  is  not 
thought  of  before  it  comes  in  sight ;  the  loss  of  asso- 
ciates is  soon  forgot.  Family  union  is  provisional,  no 
more,  not  final;  a  brief  conjunction,  not  pemianent, 
of  life-long  affection.  So  is  the  parental  instinct ;  it 
is  a  fact  for  the  season,  no  more.  If  a  snow-storm 
in  April  destroys  the  robins  by  bushels,  as  it  has  done 
the  last  month  in  New  York,  the  survivors  do  not  go 
into  mourning;  the  next  fair,  warm  day  brings  out 
the  same  sweet  carol  as  before;  the  Golgotha  of  robins 
echoes  with  the  melodious  twitter  of  the  unreflecting 
birds ;  they  pair  anew,  and  build  their  procreant  nests ; 
no  memento  mori  stares  them  in  the  face ;  their  coun- 
tenance is  never  "  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of 
thought."  In  all  the  animal  world,  nervous  activity, 
sensitiveness,  is  perfectly  balanced  by  the  power  of 
muscular  endurance.  All  the  laws  of  nature  are  made 
for  them,  and  all  are  kept.  Their  characters  are  not 
their  work  any  more  than  the  uniform  color  of  their 
skin.     They  ask  not  if  Duty's  eye  be  on  them. 

There  is  no  morality,  no  immorality,  no  doubt,  no 
remorse.  All  is  the  work  of  Providence.  It  seems  as 
if  it  were  very  fortunate  to  have  your  character  made 
for  you,  your  condition  insured  in  your  instincts. 
And  it  is  the  good  fortune  of  the  beasts ;  their  lot  has: 


HUMAN  PROGRESS  287 

fallen  to  them  in  pleasant  places,  and  the  arms  of  the 
great  God  are  about  the  hairj'  or  the  feathered  crea- 
tures, the  winged,  or  the  finned,  or  the  creeping  things 
that  He  has  made. 

In  the  world  of  man  it  is  altogether  different. 
While  the  beasts  have  their  paradise  around  them, 
made  beforehand,  man's  paradise  is  before  him.  Theirs 
is  to  be  passively  enjoyed;  man's  is  to  be  created  by 
himself,  and  then  actively  enjoyed.  The  beast's  char- 
acter is  his  nature,  in  its  instinctive  development. 
Man  is  to  make  his  character  out  of  his  nature ;  not 
by  instinctive  action  alone,  but  by  reflective,  volun- 
tary action  as  well.  God  is  sole  providence  to  the  dog, 
the  bear,  and  the  lion.  Man  is  partly  his  own  provi- 
dence, working  with  God,  who  has  taken  man  into 
that  partnership,  to  share  the  higher  risk,  and  to  share 
the  profit.  The  individual  beast  is  progressive  only 
from  birth  to  his  adult  years ;  there  he  stops ;  the  lion 
is  no  more  in  the  nineteenth  century  after  Christ  than 
he  was  in  the  nineteenth  century  before  Christ.  The 
family  of  beasts  has  no  progress  of  the  species. 

"  Such  as  creation's  dawn  beheld,  such  are  they  now." 

Man  advances  continually.  No  man  is  full-grown. 
Jesus  will  not  be  called  good ;  his  ideal  haunts  him  and 
shames  his  actual.  The  cat  and  dog  and  ox  kind  are 
fast  moored  by  Providence  in  the  same  harbor;  the 
fleet  of  animals  rides  at  anchor  all  their  life ;  but  man- 
kind looses  from  port  and  sails  the  sea  with  God, 
driven  by  every  wind,  voyaging  to  other  shores  and 
continents  continually  new.  "  Nothing  venture,  noth- 
ing have." 

Why  is  it  so?  Why  did  God,  while  binding  nature 
fast  in  fate,  set  free  the  human  will.''     I  know   not. 


288   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

This  I  do  know;  out  of  His  infinite  wisdom  and  love, 
He  confers  the  greatest  possible  blessing  on  beast  and 
man.  He  gave  to  the  beasts  what  was  best  for  them. 
Unprogressive  here,  who  knows  that  they  shall  not  be 
progressive  likewise  in  some  hereafter  that  waits  for 
the  emmet  and  the  lion?  God  made  man  for  a 
higher  lot ;  the  beast  to  have  his  condition  insured  in 
his  instinct,  man  to  produce  his  condition.  It  is  good 
fortune  for  the  beast  to  be  found  —  to  man  it  is  a 
great  blessing  that  he  is  left  to  make  —  his  char- 
acter. 

THE  FALSE  IDEA  OF  MAN  A  HINDRANCE  TO   HIS 
PROGRESS 

I  know  of  no  cause  which  so  cripples  mankind  in 
Christendom  as  the  false  doctrine  that  he  can  of  him- 
self do  nothing,  and  be  nothing ;  that  he  must  not  trust 
his  very  highest  faculties  in  their  moral  activity ;  that 
his  righteousness  is  as  filthy  rags.  This  doctrine  runs 
through  Christian  literature,  and  stains  the  hymns,  ser- 
mons, and  prayers  of  many  an  able,  educated,  and 
well-meaning  minister,  who  stands  in  his  pulpit  and 
manipulates  and  magnetizes  his  hearers  into  a  numb 
palsy  of  the  soul. 

Nobody  can  surpass  mankind  with  impunity ;  he  who 
does  so  must  pay  for  it. 

man's  progress  not  by  MIRACLE,   BUT  BY  THE 
USE  OF  NATURAL  FORCES 

Rome  was  not  built  in  a  day.  In  all  affairs,  time  is 
an  important  element.  The  "  Great  Eastern "  was 
long  in  building,  and  long  in  getting  launched.  In 
much  time,  and  for  much  time,  are  all  great  things  done. 


HUMAN  PROGRESS  289 

Slowly  and  tranquilly  the  productive  works  of  nature 
go  on.  God's  infinite  power  works  slow,  alike  in  the 
world  of  matter  and  the  world  of  man ;  nothing  by 
leaps,  all  by  steps,  never  a  miracle,  ever  a  law.  How 
long  was  the  earth  in  getting  fit  for  plants,  animals, 
men  !  How  slow  grow  up  the  trees !  Within  ten  miles 
of  us  there  is  a  grove  of  oaks  which,  brooded  by  the 
ground,  had  left  the  shell  before  Columbus  was  a  boy ; 
they  are  growing  still,  and  I  gathered  acorns  from 
them  last  autumn.  How  slowly  the  human  race 
achieves  its  destination,  little  by  little.  You  and  I  are 
hasty,  and  want  the  end  without  the  means ;  we  cry 
out,  "  How  long,  O  Lord?  "  But  that  Infinite  Power, 
so  terrible  when  considered  as  blind  fate,  so  dear  and 
beautiful  when  known  as  wise  Providence,  says  never 
a  word  in  human  speech,  but  does  continually,  in  fact, 
in  much  time,  and  for  all  time.  All  things  have  a  slant 
forward,  but  a  gradual  and  slight  one.  Israel  is  a 
little  in  advance  of  Egypt,  Greece  of  Israel,  the  Roman 
Church  of  the  Hebrew  or  heathen,  the  German  of  the 
Roman,  and  the  American  has  already  got  a  little 
beyond  any  European  church.  Whatever  excellence 
one  generation  gains,  after  it  all  generations  keep. 
Continually  is  God  speaking  to  men,  hearing,  under- 
standing, remembering,  for  all  time, —  ever-giving 
God,  ever-taking  man.  Through  you  and  me  doth 
Causal  Power  create  forever,  and  through  us  doth  the 
same  Providential  Power  conserve  forever  what  is 
good. 

As  we  look  forward,  how  dull  and  slow  time  seems. 
From  the  now  of  desire  to  the  then  of  satisfaction,  the 
road  looks  long ;  and  what  a  heavy-footed  creature  is 
this  dull  beast  of  Nature ! 

XI— 19 


290   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

"  How  slow  the  year's  dull  circle  seems  to  run, 
When  the  bright  minor  pants  for  twenty-one!" 

To  the  school-girl  how  long  are  the  last  six  days  be- 
fore Christmas ;  to  the  politician  how  interminable  the 
week  before  election,  while  he  cannot  tell  who  shall  be 
governor.  Some  prophetic  patriot  looks  on  America, 
and  has  his  brilliant  hope:  he  sees  the  day  when  demo- 
crats shall  live  democracy ;  there  shall  be  no  bondsmen 
then,  white  or  black ;  drunkenness  and  ignorance  will  be 
taken  away,  and  want  and  crime,  bereft  of  these  ugly 
parents,  in  whose  shadow  they  walk,  will  also  be  dead 
and  gone;  the  children  of  Irish  beggars,  now  shod  by 
your  charity,  and  fed  by  the  crumbs  from  lavish  or 
parsimonious  tables,  will  boast  of  "  Our  Puritanic 
Fathers,"  for  the  Celtic  blood  will  have  become  mingled 
with  the  Saxon,  as  Angle,  Norman,  and  Dane  have 
mixed  their  blood  before,  which  runs  now  in  your 
humanity  and  mine;  then  the  Ethiopian  shall  have 
changed  his  skin,  and  the  African,  baptized  by  our 
covetousness  as  slave,  shall  come  white  out  of  the 
American  Jordan,  clean  as  Naaman  of  old  from  liis 
leprosy,  and  the  scar  of  the  fetter  and  lash  be  no  more 
visible  on  the  bondsman's  child  than  the  stain  of  Anglo- 
Saxon,  Norman,  Danish  piracy  marks  your  face  or 
mine.  Our  patriot  sees  that  good  time  coming  when 
the  war  of  business  shall  be  changed  into  industrial 
peace,  the  co-operation  of  toil  and  thought,  and  as 
great  a  blessing  thence  follow  to  mankind  as  now 
there  is  from  the  present  diminution  of  war  and  ceas- 
ing of  religious  persecution.  The  ideal  hovers  over 
our  patriot's  head,  and  he  wonders  when  this  bird  of 
paradise  shall  light  and  build  her  spicy  nest,  and  rear 
her  3^oung,  to  beautify  the  air  with  such  celestial  sight 
and  sound.     "How  long?"  cries  he,  "O  Lord,  how 


HUMAN  PROGRESS  291 

long?  How  slow  the  ages  roll!  Why  is  his  chariot 
so  long  in  coming?  "  and  he  would  fain  have  a  miracle, 
and  God  do  in  a  moment  what  it  will  take  mankind  a 
hundred  or  a  thousand  years  to  work  out.  But  the 
Infinite  God  makes  no  miracle,  tinisting  America's  des- 
tination to  the  great  human  civilizing  forces  which  are 
concentrated  in  the  men  of  America,  and  the  circum- 
stances which  girt  her  round.  Why  should  God 
miraculously  put  forward  the  hands  on  the  great  dial- 
plate  of  eternity  ?  The  hour  will  strike  in  time ;  the 
machinery,  never  so  complicated,  is  yet  perfect,  and 
will  do  its  work  just  at  the  hour. 

Two  thousand  years  ago  that  great  religious  genius, 
the  manliest  man  of  manly  men,  whom  Christendom 
yet  worships  as  its  God,  uttered  his  grand  Beatitudes, 
and  foresaw  what  would  be,  what  must  be,  when  the 
Golden  Rule  of  man's  nature,  and  so  of  God's,  shall  be- 
come the  carpenter's  square,  the  trader's  yard-stick,  the 
rule  by  which  the  merchant  shall  straighten  his  col- 
umns and  regulate  his  accounts.  On  the  two  com- 
mandments, love  to  God,  and  love  to  man,  were  to  hang 
not  only  all  the  law  and  the  prophets,  but  the  church, 
state,  community,  family,  man  and  woman.  When 
he  saw  all  this,  I  do  not  wonder  that  he  thought  God 
would  intervene  and  miraculously  aid  the  work  at  once. 
The  Old  Testament  poetry  told  him  of  miracles  ;  that, 
as  the  Israelites  fled  from  Egypt,  the  Red  sea  opened 
and  closed ;  that  the  rocks,  moved  with  compassion, 
shed  water  for  the  people's  thirsty  mouths ;  that  the 
quails  flew  to  their  camp  and  fed  them,  and  filled  the 
place  round  about  a  yard  deep  with  their  meat ;  that 
for  forty  years  the  heavens  rained  manna  down,  and 
fed  them  with  angels'  bread;  that  the  earth  opened 
her  mouth   and  swallowed   up   wicked   men.      In   such 


292   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

an  age,  when  men  fancied  that  God  wrought  out  His 
great  designs  only  by  intervening  with  a  miracle,  I 
wonder  not  that  such  a  man,  so  born,  with  such  genius 
in  him,  so  bred,  with  such  deference  to  the  miraculous, 
should  say,  "  This  generation  shall  not  pass  till  all 
these  things  be  fulfilled ; "  "  There  be  some  standing 
here  which  shall  not  taste  of  death  till  they  see  the  Son 
of  Man  coming  in  his  kingdom ; "  "  Therefore  take 
no  thought  for  the  morrow ;  "  and,  "  Seek  first  the 
kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness,  and  all  these 
things  shall  be  added  to  you ;  " —  miraculously  added, 
for  God,  who  took  thought  for  the  ravens,  would  take 
more  thought  for  them.  And  when  he  saw  his  schemes 
fail,  that  Jerusalem,  which  he  would  have  folded  to  his 
heart,  persecuted  the  prophets,  and  turned  also  against 
him,  when  the  scribes  and  Pharisees  mocked  at  him, 
and  spit  on  him,  and  crucified  him,  I  wonder  not  that 
he  broke  out,  "  My  God !  my  God !  why  hast  thou 
forsaken  me?" — and  yet  there  came  the  wiser 
thought,  "  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not 
what  they  do." 

Some  years  later,  when  the  young  wife  gathered 
up  the  dead  limbs  of  lier  husband,  and  folded  her  babies 
to  her  breast,  or  when,  still  more  common,  the  husband 
himself  was  baptized  in  the  blood  of  his  martyred  wife, 

—  woman  runs  before  that  other  disciple  and  in  all 
matters  of  the  heart  and  soul  comes  soonest  to  the  end, 

—  I  do  not  wonder  that  men  and  women  expected 
miracles,  and  said,  "  The  world  must  end  if  men  suffer 
this  much  longer ;  eternity  shall  take  the  place  of  time, 
and  we  who  suffer  under  the  lash  shall  judge  angels." 
I  do  not  wonder  they  thought  so.  But  it  was  not  so 
to  be.  The  old  constant  mode  of  operation  still  went 
on,  with  never  a  miraculous  act  of  the  primeval  power, 


HUMAN  PROGRESS  293 

never  break  in  the  long  continuity  of  man's  historic 
march,  from  Adam  to  Jesus,  and  from  Jesus  down. 
The  force  that  God  put  into  mankind,  that  was  suffi- 
cient to  do  the  work  in  time,  and  time  was  part  of  the 
plan.  That  grand  idea  of  Jesus,  his  kingdom  of 
heaven  on  earth,  as  he  called  it  sometimes,  which  he 
thought  so  close  at  hand,  turned  out  to  be  only  an 
ideal  which  hovered  over  men's  heads,  and  has  led  the 
way  through  many  a  red  sea  of  war,  over  many  a  dry 
and  thirsting  wilderness,  and  still  our  feet  come  not 
yet  to  that  promised  land :  for  that  kingdom  of  heaven 
is  not  to  be  given  by  God's  instantaneous  miracle, 
but  to  be  won  by  man's  continual  thought  and  toil ; 
not  found,  but  to  be  made,  and  the  making  of  it  is 
worth  as  much  as  the  enjoying  it  when  it  shall  be 
made. 

This  is  indispensable  to  the  religious  education  of 
mankind,  and  if  the  desire  of  Jesus  and  the  early  Chris- 
tians could  have  been  brought  about,  if  the  Son  of 
Man  could  have  come  in  his  glory,  and  men  could  have 
been  clothed  like  the  ravens,  and  fed  as  these  flowers 
from  the  natural  ground  and  sky, —  it  would  have 
been  all  over  with  man,  the  poor  creature  would  have 
dwindled  and  peaked  and  pined  from  off  the  earth. 
He  was  not  made  so  to  be  treated.  So  is  it  in  all  the 
great  affairs  of  man,  in  the  march  of  humanity,  where- 
unto  Divine  Providence  is  leader,  marshaling  us  to 
battles  we  could  not  shun,  and  to  victories  we  dreamed 
not  of.  Then  when  it  is  over,  we  see  it  were  not  well 
for  Divine  Providence  to  interfere,  and  by  a  moment's 
miracle  give  mankind  what  He  offers  us  as  the  recom- 
pense of  toil  and  thought  for  many  an  age.  The 
prophecy  of  Jesus,  and  the  prayers  of  the  Christian 
martyrs  and  their  worse  martyred  friends,  are  not  ful- 


294   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

filled  by  miracle,  but,  better  yet,  the  Paradise  of  God 
achieves  itself  by  mankind's  normal  work. 

POWER    OF    THE    HUMAN    WILL    OVER    CIRCUM- 
STANCES 

The  power  of  human  nature  by  will  to  make  new 
circumstances  out  of  human  instinct  is  greater  far  than 
the  power  to  change  matter  into  tools  for  human  work. 
In  1614,  when  Captain  John  Smith  coasted  New  Eng- 
land, what  a  country  it  was !  —  its  features  grim  with 
rocks,  its  face  shaggy  with  woods,  hoarse  with  the 
voices  of  the  wild  winds,  wild  beasts,  and  wilder  men. 
Now  what  a  change,  from  the  roar  of  the  forest  to 
the  murmur  of  the  city !  But  this  human  New  Eng- 
land of  to-day  differs  from  the  human  New  England 
of  1614,  more  than  the  material  New  England  of  this 
day  differs  from  the  material  New  England  of  that. 

What  if  some  Captain  John  Smith  could  have 
coasted  the  human  world,  thirty,  or  forty,  or  only 
twenty  thousand  years  ago,  and  made  a  chart  of  the 
coast  of  mankind,  set  down  the  attainments  of  human 
experience,  and  recorded  the  soundings  of  human  con- 
sciousness. Why,  what  a  world  of  man  he  would  have 
found !  —  man  with  only  instinct,  naked  in  body,  naked 
in  mind ;  without  a  house  or  tools,  without  experience 
of  art,  without  law  or  religion,  without  manners  or 
language ;  a  brute  and  silent  herd  of  men,  subordinate 
to  the  forces  of  material  nature,  frozen  by  the  north, 
burned  by  the  south,  scared  by  thunder,  devoured  by 
beasts ;  men  with  no  state,  no  church,  no  community, 
no  marriage ;  men  in  herds,  as  fear  or  instinct  gathered 
them ;  men  in  droves,  as  some  hooting  giant  scared  them 
together.  He  would  have  found  the  young  protected 
only  by  the  descending  instinct  of  mankind,  the  child 


HUMAN  PROGRESS  295 

often  a  victim  to  his  mother's  caprice,  the  father  sac- 
rificing his  cub  when  startled  by  a  dream,  like  Abra- 
ham in  the  Old  Testament.  He  would  have  found  the 
old  men  and  women  left  to  the  weak  mercies  of  the 
ascending  instinct,  often  left  to  perish,  and  some- 
times slain  in  most  dire  extremity. 

Then  let  him  come  and  coast  the  world  anew,  sur- 
veying the  headlands  of  human  experience,  and  sound- 
ing the  deeps  of  human  consciousness,  and  he  finds  that 
New  England  has  tamed  the  world  of  matter,  has  or- 
ganized human  nature.  Mind  mixed  with  the  Con- 
necticut is  a  mill ;  mixed  with  iron  is  a  railroad  or  a 
boat ;  mixed  with  lightning  is  a  carrier-boy  from  land 
to  land.  Reason  mixed  with  human  instinct  makes 
a. greater  change.  Mind  joined  with  passion  is  a 
f  amih' ;  conscience  joined  with  instinct  is  society;  am- 
bition united  with  mind  and  conscience  is  a  state. 
The  family,  community,  and  state  are  the  most  mar- 
velous visible  tools  of  man.  The  school  is  the  garden 
for  the  intellect,  the  college  is  the  greenhouse  for  the 
nicer  intellectual  plants,  which  are  tropical  as  yet, 
and  cannot  bear  the  world's  cold  atmosphere.  But 
nature  is  a  great  nursery  for  the  mind,  the  conscience, 
the  affections,  and  the  soul ;  and  the  minister  should  be 
a  seedsman  and  florist,  a  nursery-gardener  of  the 
spirit,  seeking  all  the  world  over  for  the  choicest  seeds 
and  nicest  scions  to  sow  or  graft,  continually  get- 
ting new  varieties  of  good  to  make  the  world  blossom 
with.  A  home  is  the  choice  garden  bower  of  the  world, 
where  two  vines,  which  have  wooed  one  another  out 
from  all  the  world,  twine  together,  tendril  and  clasper 
and  branch  and  stem,  till  the  two  flame  into  one 
prophetic  bloom. 

Man's  power  over  nature  is  immense,  by  its  laws  to 


296   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

make  new  circumstances  that  shall  favor  him.  See 
the  results  in  the  annual  crop  of  tools,  cattle,  com. 
But  the  power  of  human  nature  over  human  instinct 
is  immenser  still,  by  its  laws  to  make  new  circumstan- 
ces, domestic,  social,  ecclesiastical,  and  political.  See 
the  results  thereof  in  the  annual  crop  of  truth,  of 
justice,  of  love,  of  religion.  In  1834  England  raised 
an  iron  crop  which  weighed  two  million  of  tons.  What 
was  it  to  the  crop  of  justice  which  England  raised  that 
3'ear,  which  emancipated  eight  hundred  thousand  men.'' 
Material  circumstances  must  affect  men  for  good  or  ill ; 
that  is  the  law  of  God.  But  He  has  so  made  the  world 
that  when  man  knows  what  circumstances  favor  his 
body  or  spirit,  he  can  himself  then  create  them,  and 
use  the  material  world  as  a  great  inclined  plane  to 
slope  upward  from  the  savage  to  the  saint. 

THE  NECESSITY  FOR  AN  IDEAL 

The  difference  between  the  ideal  and  the  actual  per- 
vades all  self-respectful  earnest  work.  It  is  only  the 
young  bantam  of  poets  who  is  wholly  satisfied  with  the 
frivolous  rhymes  he  throws  forth,  the  penny-a-liner 
who  is  contended  with  the  jingle  of  his  thin  and  empty 
verses ;  while  the  lofty  bard,  whom  all  the  Muses  crown 
with  their  ninefold  wreath  of  loveliness,  is  worn  with 
disquiet,  and  vexed  with  care,  to  tend  the  sacred  fire 
committed  to  his  charge.  Only  the  sign-dauber  is 
satisfied  with  the  Washingtons  and  Franklins  he  pil- 
lories for  the  public  eye;  but  to  Angelo's  vision  a 
greater  Moses  looked  out  from  the  marble  and  shamed 
his  sculpture ;  and  a  fairer  Madonna  smiled  above  every 
Virgin  Raphael  drew.  No  institution  ever  comes  up 
to  its  ideal,  it  only  draws  near  to  it.  How  self-respect- 
ful Paul  rates  the  churches  he  founded !     How  Crom- 


HUMAN  PROGRESS  297 

well  chides  the  parliament  of  his  day !  How  the  stem 
Puritans  of  New  England  rebuked  the  churches,  for 
their  pride  and  self-conceit  and  unwillingness  to  en- 
dure for  the  truth's  sake !  It  is  a  pleasing  sight  to 
see  men  doing  well,  but  not  content  to  let  well  alone, 
impatient  to  do  better ;  to  see  nations  doing  so,  reform- 
ing their  constitutions,  revolutionizing  the  first  ideas 
of  their  government  to  get  nearer  the  ideal.  I  take 
little  interest  in  a  man  who  knows  nothing  of  this 
struggle,  with  no  ideal,  who  makes  no  more  progress  in 
the  world  than  the  Rock  of  Gibraltar  or  the  Colossus 
of  Rhodes.  King  David  is  the  most  interesting  of  all 
the  Hebrew  kings,  not  merely  on  account  of  the  su- 
perior genius  of  his  character,  but  because  we  see  the 
battle  between  his  ideal  of  a  perfect  man  and  the  ugly 
fact  which  he  knew  his  life  to  be.  This  having  an 
ideal,  better  than  the  fact,  to  struggle  for,  I  say,  is 
natural  and  indispensable  to  a  man  who  respects  him- 
self, is  earnest,  and  trusts  his  God. 

DEATH  A  BLESSING  TO  MAN 

It  is  a  good  thing  for  a  man  to  be  bom  into  the 
flesh,  and  wear  it  awhile,  and  after  he  has  done  his 
work  it  is  a  good  thing  for  him  to  be  born  out  of  the 
flesh,  and  live  elsewhere ;  and  if  we  live  natural  lives, 
we  shall  one  day  be  glad  to  die  out  of  the  body,  and 
shall  only  regret  that  fact  because  we  leave  our  friends 
grieving  with  some  natural  tears  in  their  eyes. 

What  a  world  it  would  be  if  nobody  died  !  How  old- 
fashioned,  and  conservative,  and  bigoted  it  would  be- 
come !  The  very  babies  would  be  bom  old-fashioned 
children,  and  no  man  would  be  permitted  to  marry  until 
a  thousand  years  old,  nor  allowed  to  vote  till  one  and 
twenty  hundred.     If  the  majority  of  voters  were  three 


298   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

or  four  hundred  years  old,  what  progress  would  be  pos- 
sible? Tubal  Cain  —  to  borrow  him  from  the  Old 
Testament  —  would  object  to  all  improvements  in  the 
iron  manufacture,  because  he  must  learn  something 
new ;  and  Noah  to  all  improvements  in  ship-building ; 
and  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  would  be  opposing 
agricultural  societies,  and  Samuel  prohibiting  any 
amendment  of  the  constitution,  and  Job's  friend  Elihu 
would  think  nobody  wise  but  old  men ;  the  prophets, 
even  the  most  radical  of  them,  would  turn  out  to  be 
nothing  but  priests,  and  old  reformers  would  have  gone 
to  seed,  and  be  as  bearded  and  prickly  and  grim  as 
thistles  in  September.  Even  the  saints  would  be  as 
odious  as  the  mummies  now  are ;  and  ancient  fine  ladies, 
remembering  to  have  waltzed  with  Nebuchadnezzar, 
aired  themselves  at  the  opening  of  the  Hanging  Gar- 
dens, assisted  at  the  consecration  of  the  first  Pyramids, 
or  talked  ancient  Egyptian  with  the  first  dynasty  of 
kings,  would  be  putting  down  all  rival  aspiring  beau- 
ties, just  blossoming  out  of  new  buds,  fair  as  truth,  and 
welcome  as  liberty.  God  be  thanked  that  we  are  bom, 
and  also  that  in  due  time  we  pass  out  of  this  world,  and 
carry  to  that  brighter  sphere  a  few  grains  of  goodness 
gathered  here. 

THE    FOUNDERS    OF    NEW    ENGLAND THE    TRUE 

WAY  TO  HONOR  THEM 

From  1600  to  1700  there  were  great  discoveries. 
Electricity  and  the  circulation  of  the  blood  were  found 
out ;  telescopes  and  thermometers  were  invented.  There 
were  a  few  great  men  writing  great  books, —  Galileo, 
Keplar,  Newton,  Bacon,  Leibnitz,  Locke ;  mighty  men 
crowded  into  a  single  century.  But  the  greatest  work 
done  in  that  century  was  that  of  the  Puritan  setting  his 


HUMAN  PROGRESS  299 

foot  in  New  England.  Suppose  New  England  had 
been  peopled  with  men  of  no  higher  principles  than 
peopled  Cuba  or  Carolina  or  Georgia, —  what  would 
America  be?  For  two  hundred  years  it  has  incessantly 
been  making  proclamation  of  the  results  of  this  work. 
Well,  all  that  could  be  done  by  men  with  nothing  but 
the  fear  of  God,  with  no  faith  in  Him  as  the  Infinite 
Father,  but  with  faith  in  him  as  a  King,  with  but  little 
faith  in  man,  by  men  afraid  of  human  nature,  afraid 
of  the  devil,  and  afraid  of  God.  Their  heroism  was 
exceedingly  imperfect.  They  re-enacted  the  tyranny 
they  fled  from.  The  heroism  of  love  they  knew  noth- 
ing of.  They  did  not  love  the  red  man,  nor  the  black 
man.  They  did  not  love  their  God;  they  feared  Him, 
and  swore  they  would  keep  His  law. 

We  reverence  the  founders  of  New  England.  It  is 
better  to  have  been  born  of  that  stock  than  of  kings 
and  nobles.  How  shall  we  honor  them?  Not  by  pray- 
ing their  prayers  and  believing  their  creeds.  The  times 
call  on  us  for  a  nobler  heroism  than  that, —  for  the 
heroism  of  men  who  reverence  God  as  the  Infinite 
Father.  Man  is  His  highest  work.  Fidelity  to  our 
whole  nature  is  our  own  highest  duty.  It  is  not  the 
heroism  of  fear, —  the  time  for  that  has  gone  by, — 
but  it  is  the  heroism  of  love.  You  and  I  are  not 
called  on  to  leave  father  and  mother  for  religion's  sake, 
only  to  be  faithful  to  our  own  soul  and  to  be  true  to 
our  God,  come  what  may.  But  there  is  as  much  de- 
mand for  heroism  of  spirit  now  as  ever,  only  the  duty 
is  not  so  difficult,  and  no  man  perils  his  life,  only  his 
respectability.  To  the  heroism  of  our  fathers,  in 
highest  reverence,  let  us  add  the  nobler  virtues,  the 
heroism  of  love,  which  works  not  with  pike  and  gun, 
but  with  firm  justice  and  patience.     Let  us  build  our 


300   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

fathers'  monument,  not  of  marble,  but  of  men,  build- 
ing a  Church  on  faith  in  the  Infinite  Father,  and  faith 
in  man  as  the  true  son  of  God;  our  State  on  the 
unchanging  justice  of  the  Father  and  the  inalienable 
rights  of  man ;  our  society  on  the  golden  platform  of 
mutual  respect,  forbearance,  and  love ;  our  individual 
character  on  free  piety,  free  goodness,  and  free 
thought ;  —  and  we  shall  carry  on  the  work  which  our 
fathers  began,  and  some  two  hundred  and  thirty  years 
after  us  there  will  be  a  long  track  across  the  world, 
where  the  grass  is  greener  and  the  flowers  fairer  and 
more  fragrant,  because  our  feet  have  trod  the  soil. 
Then  men  shall  say  of  us, — "  Poor  and  humble  men, 
they  saw  but  a  few  things.  They  reverenced  their  fa- 
thers, but  they  did  not  hug  their  bones ;  they  were  true 
to  their  own  consciousness,  and  all  the  world  is  better 
because  these  men  have  been." 

THE    PROPHECY    OF   THE    PAST    TO    THE   FUTURE 

What  has  been  done  in  the  last  half-century  is  a 
great  achievement  looked  at  as  history, —  we  may  thank 
God  for  that, —  but  I  had  rather  look  at  it  as  proph- 
ecy. The  progress  in  material  things  in  America,  the 
increase  in  power  over  nature  throughout  the  Christian 
world,  the  rapidity  of  communication,  the  desire  for 
freedom  of  body  and  soul,  the  improvements  in  political 
institutions  and  ideas,  the  progress  in  the  churches,  and 
of  the  laws,  and  in  the  great  philanthropies  of  our 
time, —  these  to  me  are  a  prophecy  of  a  nobler  triumph 
of  mankind,  a  greater  victory  of  religion  than  the 
highest  sages  ever  dared  to  foretell  in  their  inspired 
oracles.  They  all  point  to  a  time  when  man  shall  be 
deemed  the  noblest  of  God's  works,  and  shall  have  do- 
minion over  nature,  and  shall  develop  his  spirit  to  the 


HUMAN  PROGRESS  301 

fulness  of  the  stature  of  a  perfect  man.  They  point 
to  a  society  where  the  quahties  of  a  man  shall  be 
deemed  more  and  greater  than  the  property  of  a  man, 
a  society  where  the  strong  shall  help  the  weak ;  to  a 
Church  where  respect  is  paid  to  human  nature,  where 
man  reverences  the  free  spiritual  individuality  of  man, 
where  God  is  worshiped  as  the  Infinite  Father,  not 
with  fear,  but  with  love ;  where  religion  is  confessed 
to  be  free  piety,  free  goodness,  free  thought ;  where 
nature,  material  and  human,  is  recognized  as  the  Scrip- 
ture of  God ;  where  truth  is  the  creed,  and  faith  and 
works  are  the  two  great  forms  of  communion  with 
God  and  man ;  a  Church  which,  like  this  great  soul  of 
Christ,  goes  to  seek  and  save  that  which  is  lost,  and 
under  him  sees  Satan  falling  as  lightning  out  of 
heaven ;  to  a  State  whose  statutes  recognize  the  unalien- 
able rights  of  all  men  to  life,  liberty,  property,  to  a  free 
development  of  their  nature,  a  State  whose  law  is 
justice,  and  the  welfare  of  the  negro's  child  is  as  care- 
fully cared  for  as  the  welfare  of  the  whole  State,  and 
any  insult  offered  to  it  by  a  man  is  as  promptly  re- 
dressed as  an  insult  by  a  nation  to  the  majesty  of  the 
State.  Yes,  I  think  history  points  to  a  world  where  the 
nations  shall  learn  war  no  more,  nor  count  men  of 
other  speech  as  strangers,  but  shall  seek  to  make  a 
Christian  world  where  nations  shall  dwell  together,  one 
great  family,  in  love  and  peace.  All  this  must  come. 
Ideas  which  are  now  but  sentiments,  which  are  nothing 
but  a  tendency,  will  one  day  be  a  fact ;  as  Christ's 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  they  will  make  a  new  literature, 
Church,  State,  and  world;  they  will  make  all  things 


302   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

THE   NEXT   HALF-CENTURY 

This  is  the  first  Sunday  of  a  half-century.  We 
stand  on  the  confines  of  two  ages.  The  men  who 
fouglit  the  Revolution  are  dead,  and  the  harvest  of 
their  labors  is  about  us  ;  their  memory  is  in  our  hearts ; 
let  them  pass  on  with  our  blessing  only.  The  last  year 
has  brought  us  joy,  and  it  has  brought  us  grief.  Some 
of  you  during  its  progress  have  found  a  fitting  mate, 
and  have  rejoiced  in  the  dear  name  of  husband  and 
wife.  Some  of  you  have  felt  the  breath  of  your  first- 
born, and  by  this  sweet  tie  have  been  linked  to  this 
world.  Others  have  laid  down  in  the  grave  husband 
or  wife,  parent  or  child,  or  dearest  and  most  heart- 
beloved  friend.  Joys  and  sorrows  have  come, —  what 
have  they  done  for  us.-^  Have  they  made  us  better.'' 
Have  they  made  us  worse.''  That  is  the  question, — 
not  what  we  have  had,  but  what  we  have  earned  and 
made  out  of  it.  The  time  that  God  has  given  us,  how 
have  we  woven  it  into  a  life? 

How  few  of  these  here  to-day  saw  the  beginning  of 
the  last  half-century !  Only  a  few  venerable  heads, 
which  I  see  gladly  before  my  eyes.  How  few  of  us  will 
see  the  close  of  the  next !  Not  one  in  ten  of  us  all. 
God  will  send  down  His  blessed  angel  of  death  to  carry 
us,  year  by  year,  heavenward  to  Himself.  Only  some  of 
these  little  ones  will  remember  that  they  heard  the  half- 
century  ushered  in  by  one  whose  name  will  be  forgot- 
ten then  in  the  crowd  of  wiser  and  better  and  more 
enlightened  men  who  will  come  after  me  and  take  my 
place.  But  of  us  all,  how  few  there  be  who  fifty 
years  hence  can  look  back  on  this  day  and  remember 
these  flowers !  To  such  persons  I  would  say,  Remem- 
ber the  prophecy  which  I  have  got  out  of  these  last 


HUMAN  PROGRESS  303 

fifty  years,  and  be  faithful  to  that ;  and  then  fifty  years 
hence  teach  the  young  children  to  prophesy  as  fairly  for 
the  next  half-century  to  come.  Long  ere  this  century 
shall  end,  I  and  most  of  3'ou  will  have  gone  home  to  our 
God.  We  may  carry  good  report ;  before  we  go,  we 
may  achieve  a  noble  manhood.  How  much  we  can  do 
in  a  year!  How  much  of  wisdom,  of  justice,  of  good- 
ness, and  of  holiness,  we  can  gain  in  ten  years !  What 
cubits  we  can  add  to  our  stature !  The  end  of  life  is  to 
be  a  man;  all  other  things,  marriage,  paternity,  joy, 
sorrow,  are  only  means ;  that  is  the  end.  Joy  will  come 
to  you.  Every  year  will  bring  sorrow.  Will  you 
complain  of  that.''  Does  not  the  same  God  give  us 
winter  and  summer  .'^  How  beautifully  can  we  use  them 
both!  How  nobly  we  can  build  up  ourselves,  how 
blessedly  our  families !  You  and  I  can  help  accom- 
plish that  prophecy,  can  help  form  that  Christian 
society,  church,  state,  and  world,  whereof  I  have 
spoken;  and  in  1901,  though  the  snow  lie  on  our  for- 
gotten grave,  we  shall  be  at  peace,  gone  home  to  our 
Father  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  amid  joys  and  satis- 
factions which  the  eye  has  not  seen  nor  the  ear  heard, 
and  which  the  heart  of  man  has  not  conceived  of ;  and 
though  the  snow  rest  on  our  unrecorded  grave,  and 
our  name  be  forgotten,  we  can  leave  a  world  behind 
us  that  is  better  and  fairer  and  holier  because  we 
have  lived  in  it ;  and  rising  to  our  own  stature,  we 
shall  have  taught  little  children  to  rise  to  a  stature 
greater  than  our  own,  and  by  their  Christianity  to 
shame  the  poor  religion  which  you  and  I  have  learned 
to  live. 


IX 

JESUS  OF  NAZARETH 

THE  CHARACTER  OF  JESUS 

It  is  plain  that  Jesus  was  a  man  of  large  intellectual 
character.  He  had  an  uncommon  understanding,  was 
clear  in  his  sight,  shrewd  in  his  judgment,  extraor- 
dinarily subtle  in  his  arguments,  coming  to  the  point 
with  the  quickness  of  lightning.  What  an  eye  he  had 
for  the  beauty  of  nature, —  the  little  things  under  his 
feet,  the  great  things  all  about  him ;  for  cities  set  on  a 
hill,  and  for  the  heavens  over  his  head!  What  an  eye 
for  the  beauty  of  the  relations  of  things !  He  saw  a 
meaning  in  the  salt  without  savor,  with  which  men  were 
mending  the  streets,  not  fit  even  for  the  dunghill, — 
and  what  a  lesson  he  drew  from  it !  He  saw  the  beauty 
of  relation  in  the  lilies,  clad  by  God  in  more  beauty  than 
kingly  Solomon ;  in  the  ravens,  who  gather  not  into 
storehouses  and  barns,  and  yet  the  great  Father  feeds 
and  shelters  them  under  His  own  godly  wings.  He  had 
reason  also  which  saw  intuitively  the  great  universal 
law  of  man's  nature.  And  as  the  result  of  this  three- 
fold intellect,  he  had  an  eloquence  which  held  crowds  of 
men  about  him  till  they  forgot  hunger,  thirst,  and 
weariness,  even  the  drawing  on  of  night.  He  had  a 
power  of  reasoning  which  sent  away  the  scholarly 
Pharisee,  who  had  journeyed  all  the  way  from  Jerusa- 
lem to  confute  this  peasant.  His  eloquence  was  quite 
peculiar.  His  mind  full  of  great  ideas,  his  heart 
aflame  with  noble  sentiments, —  he  knew  how  to  put 
these  into  the  homeliest  words,  and  yet  give  them  the 
most   lovely   and   attractive   shape.     In   that    common 

304 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  305 

speech,  religion  was  the  text,  his  commentary  was  the 
salt  without  savor,  the  raven  flying  over  his  head,  the 
lilies-of-the-valley,  the  grass,  dried  in  the  sun  yester- 
day, to-day  heating  the  earthen  vessel  whereon  a  poor 
woman  clapped  her  unbaked  bread ;  it  was  the  tower  of 
Siloam,  which  fell  on  men  not  worse  than  the  sur- 
vivors ;  it  was  the  temple,  the  great  idol  of  the  nation, 
of  which  should  be  left  not  one  stone  upon  another: 
all  these  were  his  commentaries.  It  was  no  vulgar 
mind  that  could  weave  such  things  into  common  speech 
in  a  moment,  and  make  the  heavens  come  down,  and 
the  earth  come  up, —  with  marvelous  rapidity  and 
instinctive  skill,  seizing  and  using  every  implement 
that  might  serve  as  a  medium  between  his  heavenly 
thought  and  the  understandings  of  common  men. 
When  he  spoke,  some  said  that  it  thundered ;  some  said 
that  an  angel  spoke ;  and  some  said  it  was  the  elo- 
quence of  genius.  Studying  in  the  schools  makes 
nothing  like  it. 

Then  there  is  this  peculiarity  about  his  intellect. 
In  reading  the  first  three  Gospels,  you  find  in  him  a 
mind  which  does  not  so  much  generalize  by  a  copious 
induction  from  a  great  many  facts ;  but  it  sees  the 
law,  as  a  woman  sees  it,  from  a  very  few  principles. 
And  so  there  is  less  of  philosophical  talent  than  of 
philosophical  genius.  You  are  surprised  more  at  the 
nice  quality  of  this  intellect,  than  at  its  great  quantity. 
On  this  account  he  anticipated  experience.  There  is 
not  a  single  word  in  the  three  Gospels  which  betrays  the 
youth  of  Jesus.  You  would  all  say, —  Behold  a  full- 
grown  man,  long  familiar  with  the  ways  of  men.  You 
would  never  think  he  was  a  young  man,  scarce  thirty 
years  old.  But  I  do  not  say  you  find  in  Jesus  at  thirty 
the  immense  philosophical  reason  which  marks  Socrates, 
XI— 20 


306   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

Aristotle,  and  Bacon  at  sixty  or  seventy,  in  the  ma- 
turity of  their  wisdom ;  nor  would  I  say  that  you  find 
such  monuments  of  imagination  as  you  meet  at  every 
step  in  Milton,  Shakespeare,  or  Dante ;  nor  that  you 
find  such  a  vast  and  comprehensive  understanding  as 
you  meet  in  the  practical  managers  of  states  and 
empires.  The  thing  would  not  be  possible.  In  the 
Old  Testament  you  find  the  writings  of  some  men 
of  distinguished  ability, —  the  author  of  the  Book  of 
Job,  of  various  parts  of  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  of 
Ecclesiasticus,  of  Ecclesiastes,  of  the  Wisdom  of  Sol- 
omon, of  the  Prophecy  of  Isaiah.  They  were  men  of 
very  large  intellect,  old,  familiar  with  men,  had  seen 
peace  and  instituted  war,  knew  the  ways  of  the  market- 
house  and  of  kings'  courts.  In  comparison,  the  words 
of  Jesus,  a  Nazarene  peasant,  only  thirty  years  old, 
are  fully  up  to  the  highest  level  of  their  writings. 
You  never  feel  that  he  was  inferior  to  them  in  intellec- 
tual grasp. 

Now  the  common  idea  that  Jesus  received  this  intel- 
lectual power  from  miraculous  inspiration  destroys  all 
the  individuality  of  his  character, —  for  it  makes  him 
God,  or  else  a  mere  pipe  on  which  God  plays.  In  either 
case  there  is  nothing  human  about  it,  and  it  is  of  no 
use  to  us. 

But  his  greater  greatness  came  not  from  the  intel- 
lect, but  from  a  higher  source.  It  is  eminence  of  con- 
science, heart  and  soul ;  in  one  word,  it  is  religious 
eminence.  Here  are  the  proofs  of  it :  He  makes  re- 
ligion consist  in  piety  and  morality,  not  in  belief  in 
forms,  not  in  outside  devotion.  He  knew  it  is  a  very 
easy  thing  to  be  devout  after  the  common  fashion,  as 
easy  to  make  prayers  as  to  fill  your  hand  with  dust 
from  the   street.     Was   it  a  little   thing  in   Jesus   to 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  307 

declare  that  religion  consisted  in  piety  and  morality? 
All  the  world  over,  the  priests  made  religion  to  con- 
sist in  forms,  rituals,  mutilating  the  body  and  spirit, 
in  attending  to  artificial  ordinances.  Jesus  summed 
up  all  the  law  and  the  prophets  in  love  to  God  and  love 
to  man.  Men  worshiped  the  Sabbath ;  he  religiously 
broke  it.  They  thought  God  loved  only  the  Jew,  and 
above  all  some  Jewish  priest,  with  bells  on  his  gar- 
ments ;  but  he  set  up  a  traveling  Samaritan  as  the 
religious  man.  What  a  gnashing  of  teeth  there  was 
in  the  Jerusalem  Association  when  he  said  the  Samari- 
tan was  a  great  man !  Doubtless  it  was  a  story 
founded  on  fact, —  some  good-natured  Samaritan,  jog- 
ging on  his  donkey  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho,  seeing 
the  poor  man,  and  giving  him  his  sympathy  and  aid. 
It  took  a  man  of  great  religious  genius  to  say  that 
two  thousand  years  ago ;  it  is  a  rare  thing  to  compre- 
hend it  to-day.  See  the  same  thing  in  his  love  of  the 
wicked.  He  went  to  cure  the  sick ;  not  to  cure  the 
righteous,  and  save  the  well.  His  sympathy  was  with 
the  oppressed  and  trodden  down,  and  very  practical 
sympathy  it  was  too.  The  finest  picture  of  an  ideal 
gentleman  which  antiquity  has  left  is  contained  in  the 
Book  of  Job.  But  Job's  ideal  gentleman  is  very 
proud,  overbearing  to  man  beneath  him.  "  Their 
fathers,"  said  he,  "  I  would  have  disdained  to  set  with 
the  dogs  of  my  flock."  The  Book  of  Job  is  one  of 
the  best  in  the  Old  Testament, —  full  of  poetry,  which 
is  a  small  thing ;  and  full  of  piety  and  morality,  which 
is  a  great  thing.  This  is  the  limitation  of  that  ideal 
gentleman.  Now  Jesus  goes  out  to  that  despised  class 
of  men,  and  says  he  came  to  seek  and  save  them.  Was 
that  a  small  thing?  Even  to-day,  in  democratic  Bos- 
ton, to  be  a  minister  to  the  poor  is  a  reproach.     He 


308      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  JVIAN 

is  esteemed  the  most  fortunate  minister  who  is  minis- 
tered unto,  and  not  who  ministers.  The  man  who  in 
Boston  gathers  crowds  of  men  from  the  common  walks 
of  hfe, —  what  is  he  called?  "  A  preacher  to  the  rab- 
ble,"—  that  is  the  ecclesiastical  title.  What  was  it  in 
the  old  civilization  two  thousand  years  ago, —  a  civili- 
zation controlled  by  priests  and  soldiers,  who  had  a 
sword  to  offer  to  the  beggar  and  the  slave,  and  who 
looked  with  haughty  scorn,  like  Aristotle  and  Cicero, 
on  men  who  got  their  bread  by  the  work  of  their 
hand  ? 

The  third  thing  was  his  trust  in  God.  The  Hebrews 
were  and  are  more  remarkable  for  their  faith  in  God 
than  any  other  nation  that  ever  lived.  In  this,  Jesus 
was  a  Hebrew  of  Hebrews,  the  most  eminent  of  his 
tribe  in  this  vast  quality.  But  witness  that  his  faith 
was  in  a  God  who  loved  all  men,  in  the  God  who  went 
out  to  meet  the  prodigal,  and  met  him  a  great  way  off, 
and  fell  on  his  neck  and  kissed  him,  and  was  more  joy- 
ous over  one  sinner  that  repented  than  over  ninety-nine 
that  needed  no  repentance.  The  first  Gospel  does  not 
understand  this,  and  therefore  denies  the  width  of  Je- 
sus' faith  in  God,  and  makes  him  limit  his  ministry  to 
his  own  nation ;  but  the  second  and  third  Gospels  put  it 
beyond  a  doubt. 

Now  the  impression  that  he  has  made  on  the  world, 
the  character  of  his  influence,  the  opinion  which  the 
human  race  has  formed  of  him, —  all  confinn  this  judg- 
ment, derived  from  the  historical  record  of  his  words 
and  works.  It  seems  to  me  that  his  actual  character 
was  higher  than  the  character  assigned  to  Jehovah  in 
the  Old  Testament,  to  Zeus  in  Greece,  or  Jupiter  in 
Rome.  He  made  a  revolution  in  the  idea  of  God,  and 
himself  went  up  and  took  the  throne  of  the  world. 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  309 

That  was  a  step  in  progress ;  and  if  called  upon  to 
worship  the  Jehovah  of  the  Old  Testament,  or  Jesus 
of  Nazareth,  a  plain  man,  as  he  is  painted  in  the  first 
three  Gospels,  I  should  not  hesitate,  I  should  worship 
my  brother;  for  in  the  highest  qualities  this  actual 
man  is  superior  to  men's  conception  of  God.  He  loves 
men  of  all  nations,  is  not  angry  with  the  wicked  every 
day;  hating  sin,  he  has  the  most  womanly  charity  for 
the  sinner.  Jesus  turned  the  heathen  gods  out  of  the 
heathen  heaven,  because  he  was  more  God  than  they ; 
and  he  ascended  the  throne  of  Jehovah,  because  in  his 
life  he  gave  more  proof  of  justice  and  love  than  Je- 
hovah, as  He  is  represented  in  the  Old  Testament. 
Let  us  not  be  harsh;  let  us  not  blame  men  for  wor- 
shiping the  creature  more  than  the  Creator.  They 
saw  the  Son  higher  than  the  Father,  and  they  did 
right.  The  popular  adoration  of  Jesus  to-day  is  to 
me  the  best  thing  in  the  popular  ecclesiastical  re- 
ligion. 

But  I  do  not  believe  in  the  perfection  of  Jesus,  that 
he  had  no  faults  of  character,  was  never  mistaken, 
never  angry,  never  out  of  humor,  never  dejected,  never 
despairing.  I  do  not  believe  that  from  his  cradle  to  his 
cross  he  never  did,  nor  said,  nor  felt,  nor  thought,  a 
wrong  thing.  To  say  that  weis  his  character,  I  think 
would  be  as  absurd  as  to  say  that  he  learned  to  walk 
without  stumbling,  or  to  talk  witliout  stammering,  or 
could  see  as  well  at  three  hours  old  as  at  twelve  years, 
and  could  reason  as  well  at  thirty  days  as  at  thirty 
years.  God  does  not  create  monsters,  he  creates  men. 
I  cannot  say  that  in  his  popular  teachings  there  are  no 
errors.  It  seems  to  me  very  plain  that  he  taught  the 
existence  of  a  devil ;  that  he  ascribed  evil  qualities  to 
God,  wrath  that  would  not  sleep  at  the  Day  of  Judg- 


310   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

ment ;  that  he  believed  in  eternal  torment.  His  predic- 
tion that  the  world  would  soon  be  destroyed,  and  that 
the  Son  of  Man  would  come  back  in  the  clouds  of 
heaven,  and  that  this  should  take  place  during  the  life 
of  men  then  living,  was  obviously  a  mistake.  So  with 
the  promise  of  temporal  power  to  the  twelve  apostles. 
All  this  shows  the  limitations  of  the  man.  Men  claim 
that  Jesus  had  no  error  in  his  creed  or  his  life,  no 
defect  in  his  character.  Then  of  course  he  is  not  a 
man,  but  God  Himself,  or  a  bare  pipe  on  which  God 
plays ;  and  in  either  case  there  was  no  virtue,  no  warn- 
ing, no  example  in  the  man.  And  I  think  that  Jesus 
would  be  the  last  man  in  the  world  ever  to  have  claimed 
the  exemption  that  is  claimed  for  him  by  the  clergy  in 
all  Christian  lands.  I  know  that  what  I  say  is  a  great 
heresy. 

The  coming  of  such  a  man  was  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance to  mankind.  He  showed  a  higher  type  of 
manliness  than  the  world  had  ever  seen  before,  or  men 
deemed  possible.  There  was  manly  intellect  joined 
with  womanly  conscience  and  affection  and  soul;  there 
was  manhood  and  womanhood  united  into  one  great 
humanhood  of  character.  Men  were  shut  up  in  na- 
tionalities. He  looked  at  humanity ;  all  men  were  as 
brothers.  Men  looked  out  at  some  old  conception  of 
a  God,  who  once  spoke  on  Sinai,  and  who  said  His  last 
word  years  ago.  He  told  them  there  was  a  living 
God,  numbering  the  hairs  of  their  head,  loving  the 
eighteen  men  whom  the  tower  of  Siloam  slew,  and  just 
as  ready  to  inspire  the  humblest  fisherman  by  the 
Galilean  lake  as  Moses.  He  found  men  undertaking 
to  serve  God  by  artificial  rites  and  ceremonies,  sacri- 
fices, fast  days,  feast  days ;  and  he  bade  them  serve 
him  by  daily  piety  and  morality ;  and,  if  they  could 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  311 

not  find  the  way,  he  walked  before  and  showed  them, 
—  this  was  the  greatest  thing  that  could  be  done. 

I  think  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  greater  than  the 
Evangelists  supposed  him  to  be.  They  valued  him  for 
his  miraculous  birth  and  works,  because  he  was  the  He- 
brew Messiah.  I  do  not  believe  his  miraculous  birth 
and  works,  I  am  sure  he  was  not  the  Hebrew  Messiah. 
I  should  not  think  him  any  better  for  being  miracu- 
lously born ;  the  common  birth  is  good  enough  for 
mankind.  I  think  the  Christian  churches  greatly  un- 
derrate Jesus.  They  make  his  death  his  great  merit. 
To  be  willing  to  spend  a  few  hours  in  dying  for  man- 
kind,—  what  is  that .''  We  must  all  meet  death  ;  if  not 
to-day,  some  other  day,  and  to  spend  a  few  hours  in 
dying  is  a  trifle  any  day ;  for  a  few  dollars  a  month, 
and  a  bit  of  bunting  with  stripes  on  it,  you  may  hire 
men  any  day  for  that.  But  to  be  a  man  with  such  a 
character  as  that,  possessed  of  such  a  masculine  quan- 
tity of  intellect,  and  of  such  a  womanly  quality,  with 
such  a  feminine  affection  and  soul, —  I  would  rather 
be  that  than  be  a  dozen  Hebrew  Messiahs  wrought  into 
one.  To  teach  men  that  religion  was  piety  and  mo- 
rality, and  what  belonged  to  them  ;  to  tell  them  that 
religion  was  not  for  Saturday  onl}^,  but  for  Sunday, 
Monday,  and  every  day ;  for  the  fireside  and  the  way- 
side; to  live  that  religion,  merciful  to  the  merciless, 
hating  sin  with  all  his  character,  but  loving  the  sinner 
with  all  his  heart ;  able  as  the  ablest-minded,  but  shed- 
ding his  sunlight  on  the  dark  places  of  the  earth, —  I 
would  rather  be  such  a  man  than  a  hundred  incarna- 
tions of  the  Olympian  Jove.  Men  vastly  underrate 
the  character  of  Jesus  in  looking  to  make  him  a  God. 
They  have  forgotten  the  mighty  manhood  which 
burned  in  that  Galilean  breast. 


Sm      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

This  was  the  cause  of  his  success.  He  was  a  great 
man,  and  of  the  highest  kind  of  greatness ;  not  without 
faults,  but  the  manhest  of  men ;  not  without  errors  in 
his  doctrine,  as  it  has  been  reported.  He  called  men 
off  from  a  dead  Deity  to  a  living  God,  from  artificial 
sacraments  to  natural  piety  and  morality.  He 
preached  natural  religion,  gave  men  a  new  sight  of 
humanity.  It  was  too  great  for  them.  The  first 
generation  said  he  was  a  devil,  and  slew  him ;  the  next 
said  he  was  a  God,  and  worshiped  him.  He  was  not 
a  God,  but  a  man  showing  us  the  way  to  God ;  not 
saving  us  by  his  death,  but  leading  us  by  his  life; 
crucified  between  two  other  malefactors,  as  the  Scrip- 
ture tells,  buried  secretly  at  night,  and  now  worshiped 
as  God. 

Though  almost  two  thousand  years  have  passed  by, 
Christendom  has  not  yet  got  high  enough  to  reverence 
the  Galilean  peasant  who  was  our  brother.  We  honor 
his  death,  but  not  his  life ;  look  to  him  to  save  us  in 
our  sins,  not  to  save  us  from  them.  Men  call  him 
"Master,"  and  scorn  his  lesson,  "Lord,"  and  reject 
the  religion  which  he  taught, —  to  visit  the  fatherless 
and  widows  in  their  affliction,  and  to  keep  a  life  un- 
spotted from  the  world. 

I  look  on  Jesus  as  the  highest  product  of  the  human 
race.  I  honor  intellectual  greatness ;  I  bend  my  neck 
to  Socrates,  and  Newton,  and  Laplace,  and  Hegel,  and 
Kant,  and  the  vast  minds  of  our  own  day.  But  what 
are  they  all,  compared  with  this  greatness  of  justice, 
greatness  of  philanthropy,  greatness  of  religion? 
Why,  they  are  as  nothing !  I  look  on  Jesus  not  only 
as  a  historical  prophet,  but  as  a  prophetic  foretelling. 
He  shows  what  is  in  you  and  me,  and  only  comes  as  the 
earliest  flower     of  the  spring  comes,  to  tell  us  that 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  313 

summer  is  near  at  hand.  Amid  the  Caesars,  the  Max- 
imuses,  the  Herculeses,  the  Vishnus,'  the  Buddhas,  and 
the  Jehovahs,  who  have  been  successively  the  objects 
of  the  earthly  or  heavenly  worship  of  men,  Jesus  comes 
out  as  these  fair  flowers  come  in  the  wintry  hour, 
tokens  of  a  summer  yet  to  come,  of  the  tropic  realms, 
where  all  this  beauty  blossoms  all  the  year.  I  thank 
God  for  the  history  which  Jesus  is !  I  thank  Him  more 
for  the  prophecy  which  he  is ! 

THE  JESUS  OF  FACT  AND  THE  CHRIST  OF  FANCY 

The  Jesus  of  Nazareth  who  sums  up  religion  in  piety 
and  morality,  and  goes  about  healing  the  sick,  who 
brings  good  tidings  to  the  poor,  who  violates  old 
rituals,  teaching  men  to  have  faith  in  the  actual  God, 
who  is  as  much  alive  to-day  as  he  ever  was,  and  as 
ready  to  inspire  men, —  what  a  difference  between  him 
and  the  Christ  of  Fancy  in  the  popular  churches  of 
Christendom !  There  is  not  a  great  sect  in  the  whole 
world  where  Jesus  of  Nazareth  would  be  thought  a 
great  Christian ;  not  one  where  he  would  not  be  deemed 
the  chiefest  of  infidels.  How  widely  have  the  popular 
churches  departed  from  the  historic  fact  of  Jesus ! 
Each  sect  and  country  has  its  Christ  of  Fancy.  The 
Roman  Christ  of  Fancy  loves  the  pope,  and  says, 
*'  Confess  yourselves,  hear  mass,  reverence  the  priest ! 
Do  not  read  the  Bible."  The  Protestant  Christ  of 
Fancy  says,  "  Call  no  man  master ;  all  are  brothers ! 
Search  the  Scriptures !  He  that  believeth  and  is  bap- 
tized shall  be  saved ;  but  he  that  believeth  not  shall  be 
damned !  "  The  Russian  Christ  of  Fancy  blesses  the 
Autocrat,  bids  him  fight  the  Turk,  etc.  The  French 
Christ  of  Fancy  approves  Napoleon,  and  bids  the 
people  give  him  their  necks.     The  English  Christ  of 


314   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

Fancy  establishes  the  Episcopal  Church,  upholds  the 
nobility  and  gentry,  and  allows  the  people  to  perish. 
The  American  Christ  of  Fancy  is  a  kidnapper,  and 
would  send  back  his  mother  to  slavery  to  preserve 
the  Union.  The  politician's  Christ  of  Fancy  would 
have  religion  kept  out  of  politics,  lest  it  make  men 
mad. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  all  this, —  the  honor  which 
men  seek  to  bestow  on  Christ?  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was 
more  than  they  think  it  possible  for  man  to  be,  and  so 
they  call  him  God.  The  miracles  they  tell  about  are 
only  the  flowers  that  bloom  beside  his  pathway,  the 
palm  branches  and  garments  men  strew  before  him. 
Nay,  he  was  more  than  they  thought  God  could  be, 
and  so  they  made  him  God. 

What  an  encouragement  is  his  character,  his  life, 
his  honor  amongst  men !  His  highest  thought  is  still 
the  prayer  of  the  best,  his  life  their  model.  The 
carpenter  of  Nazareth  has  routed  all  the  gods  of 
Olympus,  overturned  their  temples,  banished  them 
from  the  earth.  To  the  highest  conception  of  God 
men  had,  they  have  now  added  the  gentleness  and  love 
of  Christ,  and  so  enriched  their  idea  of  God.  But  the 
same  inspiration  that  filled  his  soul  waits  for  you  and 
me  now.  The  same  history  with  mankind  is  for  us  all, 
for  every  truth  we  teach  shall  pass  into  the  world's  life, 
our  justice  be  incarnated  into  its  institutions,  and 
every  noble  thing  we  have  got  in  advance  of  mankind 
shall  be  added  to  the  popular  conception  of  God, 
and  our  earth  also  shall  ascend  to  heaven.  The  mem- 
ory of  Jesus  is  still  with  us ;  his  history  is  the  world's 
greatest  encouragement.     But  where  does  he  dwell.'' 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  315 

"  Think  ye,  in  these  portentous  times 

Of  wrath,  and  hate,  and  wild  distraction, 
Christ  dwells  within  a  church  that  rests 
A  comfortable,  cold  abstraction? 

He  stands  where  earnest  minds  assert 

God's  law  against  a  creed  dogmatic, 
And  from  dead  symbols  free  the  truth 

Of  which  they  once  were  emblematic. 

He  is  where  patriots  pine  in  cells. 

To  felons  chained,  or,  faint  and  gory, 
Ascend  the  scaffold  steps,  to  leave 

Their  children's  heritage  of  glory. 

He  is  where  men  of  fire-touch'd  lips 

Tell,  to  astonish'd  congregations, 
The  infamies  that  prop  a  crown, 

And  paint  in  blood  the  wrongs  of  nations. 

He  cries:   'On,  brethren,  draw  the  sword. 
Loose  the  bold  pen  and  tongue,  unfearing. 

The  weakness  of  our  human  flesh 
Is  ransom'd  by  your  persevering ! '  " 


THE  MISSION  OF  JESUS 

What  did  Jesus  come  for,''  To  seek  and  to  save 
that  which  was  lost,  not  to  destroy  it ;  and  to  lose  his 
own  life,  not  to  save  it.  His  great  ability  of  intellect 
separated  him  from  the  sympathy  of  his  age.  The 
controlling  men  could  no  more  understand  him  than 
an  oyster  could  follow  an  eagle  in  his  flight  through 
the  sky.  His  motives  were  beyond  their  comprehen- 
sion. Men  commonly  sought  the  society  of  the  rich 
and  great ;  he  that  of  the  poor  and  lowly.  They  as- 
sociated with  the  famous  and  respectable ;  he  was  the 
friend  of  publicans  and  sinners.  There  were  able 
men  enough  about  Jerusalem,  seeking  for  ease,  honor, 
respectability,  and  money.     I  find  no  fault  with  them 


316      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

for  that;  thej  sought  the  best  things  they  were  ac- 
quainted with.  He  sought  to  serve  and  bless  mankind. 
He  asked  his  daily  bread,  no  more ;  no  service,  honor, 
fame,  and  would  not  be  called  Master,  though  he  was 
master  of  them  all ;  he  would  not  be  called  good  even. 
See  Avhat  kind  of  persons  he  held  up  as  models  to  man- 
kind: the  despised  Samaritan,  who  went  out  of  his 
way  to  do  good  to  a  national  enem^',  whom  his  nation 
hated,  and  did  it  after  the  man's  own  countrymen  had 
passed  by,  and  left  him  half  dead ;  the  poor  and  hated 
publican,  who  dared  not  lift  up  his  eyes  to  God, 
abashed  with  consciousness  of  sin  in  the  sweet  pres- 
ence of  the  Father;  the  poor  widow,  who  stealthily 
dropped  her  two  mites,  saved  by  penurious  self-denial, 
into  the  temple  chest.  These  were  the  models  he  held 
up  for  the  adoration  of  mankind,  while  Herod  and 
Pilate  passed  by  in  pomp,  and  got  the  admiration  of 
the  people,  and  the  high-priest  stood  there,  arrayed 
in  his  costly  robes,  and  was  greeted  with  the  applause 
of  the  multitude.  See  how  he  lived  in  daily  contact 
with  want  and  ignorance  and  lowness  and  sin ;  but  he 
saw  want  to  relieve  it,  ignorance  to  teach,  lowness  to 
raise  it  up,  sin  to  awaken  the  soul  in  the  sinner's 
bosom,  and  elevate  it  to  God.  He  went  amongst  men 
who  seemed  to  think  that  God  died  in  giving  birth  to 
the  Old  Testament,  as  men  now  think  he  died  in  giving 
birth  to  Christ  and  the  New  Testament.  He  told  them 
of  God,  not  a  thousand  years  off;  showed  them  his 
providence,  not  in  killing  Pharaoh  in  the  Red  Sea,  and 
taking  the  Hebrews  through,  high  and  dry ;  he  ap- 
pealed to  facts,  not  fiction ;  he  showed  God's  providence 
in  the  grass  blooming  to-day,  though  feeding  the 
oven  to-morrow,  in  the  lilies-of-the-valley,  taking  no 
thought,  but  clad  in  more  beauty  than  Solomon;  in 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  317 

the  fowls  of  the  air,  the  raven  seeking  his  food  afar, 
the  sparrows,  three  of  them  sold  for  a  penny,  yet  not 
one  of  them  falling  to  the  ground  without  the  Father. 
They  wanted  faith ;  and  he  not  only  had  it,  he  showed 
it,  he  lived  it,  he  was  faith  manifest  in  the  flesh. 

Do  you  wonder  such  a  man  made  enemies  of  the 
priests,  the  scribes  and  the  Pharisees?  It  was  not  pos- 
sible it  should  be  otherwise.  His  greatness  put  their 
littleness  to  shame,  his  charity  was  their  condemnation. 
Those  awful  words,  "  Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and 
Pharisees ! "  were  not  half  so  condemnatory  as  the 
parable  of  the  Samaritan  and  the  story  of  the  Prodigal 
Son.  They  could  understand  his  criticism ;  it  scorched 
and  withered  them  up ;  but  his  creation  was  keener  still, 
though  they  comprehended  it  not.  Men  bred  under 
a  different  ideal  of  religion  could  not  see  him  as  he 
was,  more  than  a  fly  can  see  the  State  House.  No 
wonder  they  hated  and  slew  him. 

Do  you  wonder  that  he  was  loved .''  He  went  out  to 
seek  the  lost, —  the  poor,  who  had  none  to  comfort ; 
the  sick,  who  had  nobody  to  heal  them,  except  that 
great  physician ;  the  despised  children  of  Abraham, 
who  remembered  the  priests'  and  the  Levites'  hate,  and 
paid  for  it  with  scorn  and  indignity  and  contempt. 
Do  you  wonder  the  people  heard  him  gladly?  I  can 
understand  how  such  a  man  looked  on  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  Abraham,  poor,  condemned,  and  self- 
condemned  ;  I  can  understand  how  he  went  and  poured 
out  his  gi'eat  human  heart  and  his  great  human  soul 
to  them,  in  words  that  ran  round  like  a  river  of  fire, 
and  they  turned  and  blessed  the  man  who  spoke  a 
human  word  to  their  hungry  human  soul.  Very 
likely  there  were  men  amongst  them  who  had  given  up 
all  hope  of  religion,  who  had  no  joy  in  the  remem- 


318      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  JVIAN 

brance  of  the  past,  and  no  hope  in  the  future;  men 
who  despaired  of  man  and  had  no  faith  in  God.  There 
are  always  such  men.  They  are  not  bad,  only  sick 
men,  and  desperate.  The  churches  cast  out  such  men 
as  infidels;  they  ought  to  take  them  to  their  arms,  and 
cheer,  and  comfort,  and  heal,  and  bless  them.  That 
is  always  a  partial  church  which  has  not  a  corner  in 
the  chancel  for  such  as  call  themselves  infidels.  I  can 
understand  how  Christ  spoke  to  such  men ;  how  he 
solved  their  doubts,  healed  their  wounds,  and  cured 
their  griefs ;  not  by  a  special  answer  to  every  special 
question, —  I  do  not  believe  even  his  wisdom  could  have 
given  a  satisfactory  answer  to  every  particular  and 
troublesome  doubt, —  but  by  awaking  a  natural  re- 
ligious sentiment  in  the  heart.  I  can  understand  how 
such  men  left  every  thing  and  followed  him ;  how  on 
foot,  and  sore,  tired,  and  hungry,  they  forgot  their 
fainting  and  the  famine  in  their  mouth  for  the  great 
plenteousness  which  so  filled  their  soul.  It  is  always 
a  great  day  when  a  man  of  genius  is  born,  a  man  of 
merely  intellectual  genius ;  it  is  a  very  great  day  when 
a  man  is  born  into  the  world  with  a  genius  for  justice, 
for  love,  and  for  piety.  If  he  can  speak  only  to 
scholars,  in  a  scholar's  speech,  it  is  a  great  thing,  and 
the  human  race  may  well  hold  its  Christmas  festivals 
at  such  a  birth.  But  when  a  man  comes  armed  with 
such  a  genius  that  he,  with  his  single  soul,  can  fill  up 
all  the  space  between  highest  God  and  humblest  man, 
so  that  he  can  hear  with  his  own  ears,  and  at  first  hand, 
the  thoughts  of  God,  and  with  his  own  mouth,  and  at 
first  hand,  tell  them  to  the  people,  needing  no  mediator 
between  him  and  God,  on  the  one  side,  and  between  him 
and  man  on  the  other  side, —  then  you  have  a  very 
rare  soul,  and  mankind  may  well  celebrate  its  Easter 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  319 

for  that.  And  Jesus  was  such  a  one.  He  had  the 
power  of  receiving  truth  from  God,  and  the  power  of 
telhng  it,  in  a  way  and  with  an  eloquence  which  was 
thunder  and  hghtning  to  the  people,  such  as  the  world 
had  not  seen  before.  It  would  be  rather  wonderful 
to  see  a  man  come  now  to  seek  and  save  the  lost ;  it 
would  imply  something  more  than  great  intellect, — 
an  unconscious  gift  of  conscience,  affection,  and  the 
religious  power.  What  was  it  to  do  this  two  thousand 
years  ago.''  Now  we  have  Jesus  for  our  model,  and  a 
hundred  sects  in  all  Christian  lands,  fired  by  his  ex- 
ample ;  some  believers  in  his  theology,  some  disbelievers, 
from  St.  Augustine  down  to  Robert  Owen ;  some  believ- 
ers in  the  theology  of  the  times,  some  disbelievers,  the 
believers  in  real  goodness  towards  men. 

I  have  always  looked  on  Jesus  as  the  greatest  pat- 
tern of  a  man  that  the  human  race  has  produced ;  but 
in  nothing  does  his  greatness  appear  so  high  as  in 
the  direction  in  which  he  goes  to  work.  He  turns  to 
the  needy,  and  seeks  for  the  lost.  Here  was  the  great- 
est man  God  had  raised  up,  engaged  in  the  greatest 
and  highest  function  a  man  can  fill.  Suppose  such  a 
man  should  come  now,  as  much  before  the  popular 
religion  in  our  time  as  he  was  then  before  the  popu- 
lar religion  in  Jerusalem, —  how  would  he  be  received  ? 
Some  think  if  such  a  man  were  to  come,  he  would  re- 
port himself  at  the  Boston  Association  of  Ministers, 
and  be  invited  to  stand  in  pulpits,  and  perhaps  to  de- 
liver a  "  Thursday  Lecture."  I  doubt  that  he  would 
do  any  such  tiling.  If  so,  I  think  he  would  shake  the 
pulpits  worse  than  last  week's  storm  shook  the  steeples. 
I  have  some  doubts  whether  the  ministers  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  would  come  off  any  better  than  the 
ministers  of  the  first  century  did.     I  think  he  would 


320   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

turn  his  attention  to  the  lost  now  as  he  did  then ;  he 
would  not  have  far  to  go  to  seek  and  find  them. 
Here  are  the  materially  lost,  fugitive  slaves  who  do 
not  own  their  own  bodies,  and  are  hunted  by  men  who 
are  members  of  churches,  who  take  the  sacrament  in 
the  church  in  the  name  of  Christ,  on  Sunday,  and  the 
next  day  kidnap  their  brother  men.  He  would  care 
for  these  outcasts.  He  would  raise  the  drunkard,  the 
criminal,  the  poor, —  men  who  never  enter  a  church 
from  year  to  year,  and  in  a  great  city  die  and  have 
no  consolation,  who  know  of  no  Redeemer,  human  or 
divine.  How  many  thousand  men  and  women  there 
are  who  hear  no  word  of  religious  instruction,  religious 
rebuke,  or  religious  comfort,  who  have  only  one  act 
of  religion,  as  it  is  commonly  called,  performed  in  their 
presence,  and  that  is  the  burial  service  read  over  their 
coffin-lids.  I  think  Christ  would  have  a  word  to  say 
to  and  for  all  these  men.  I  think  there  would  be  such 
a  Sermon  on  the  Mount  as  would  make  the  ears  of 
mankind  tingle.  Then  there  are  men  spiritually  lost, 
and  I  think  he  would  say  a  word  to  them.  Thunder 
it  might  be,  terrible  at  first,  but  like  thunder,  as 
cleansing  to  the  sky ;  not  so  like  lightning,  which 
shatters  where  it  shines,  as  light,  which  cheers  and 
revives  what  it  falls  upon.  I  think  he  would  tell  them 
of  the  falseness  of  their  life,  of  the  unsatisfactoriness 
of  joys  in  which  religion  had  no  part;  that  Christian 
hypocrisy  is  a  poor  substitute  for  Christian  religion 
before  men,  and  poorer  before  God.  I  think  he  would 
show  them  that  religion  is  natural,  is  human  nature 
itself  at  its  work ;  that  he  would  prove  to  them  their 
need  of  it,  and  show  them  the  means  of  supply. 

Well,  Jesus,  when  he  did  come,  came  to  seek  and  to 
save  the  lost.     He  had  to  pay   for  it  with  his   life. 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  321 

Had  he  come  to  lose  men,  and  not  to  find  them,  he 
might  have  had  rank  and  fame,  have  been  in  the  senate 
of  King  Herod,  with  plenty  of  money  and  honor. 
But  now  see  the  odds.  Men  could  not  understand  him 
then ;  but  his  idea  went  into  a  few  minds,  his  example 
into  more,  and  ten  years  had  not  passed  by  before 
there  were  men  going  all  over  the  world,  seeking  for 
what  was  lost ;  and  before  a  hundred  years,  in  every 
great  city  of  the  heathen  world  there  were  Christians, 
whom  his  idea  had  inspired  and  his  example  had  quick- 
ened into  life.  Now  what  a  different  world  it  is  be- 
cause he  has  done  as  he  did !  Take  that  name  out  of 
the  world,  that  great  character  out  of  the  world,  and 
all  its  influence,  and  what  should  we  be.'^  I  speak 
within  bounds  when  I  say  he  has  advanced  the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  world  at  least  a  thousand  years.  Yet  we 
understand  very  little  of  his  religion.  We  have  talked 
so  much  of  his  divinity  that  we  have  forgotten  his 
humanity. 

Today  is  Easter  Sunday,  and  all  over  the  Christian 
world,  save  puritanical  New  England,  it  is  a  day  of 
rejoicing.  It  is  to  the  Catholic  Christian  the  great 
festival  of  the  Christian  year.  Men  celebrate  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus.  To  me  all  that  is  mythology ; 
yet  I  welcome  the  day  which  brings  men  to  a  conscious- 
ness of  that  great  soul,  and  wish  men  could  see  what 
he  came  for,  and  how  he  did  his  work.  This  seeking 
to  save  the  lost  is  the  special  thing  which  makes  him 
so  dear  to  mankind.  If  he  had  lived  such  a  life  as 
Herod  did,  do  you  suppose  men  would  ever  have  told 
the  story  of  his  resurrection  from  the  dead,  and  cele- 
brated Easter  Festival  over  that  event?  No,  they 
would  have  hated  him  the  more  if  he  had  been  raised 
from  the  dead.  It  was  his  character  that  made  men 
XI— 21 


322      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

believe  he  wrought  miracles.     It  is  this  which  makes 
his  memory  so  precious  to  the  world. 

THE  STRENGTH  OF  JESUS 

It  is  easy  now  to  see  the  main  features  of  this  vast 
man,  Jesus.  He  was  uncommonly  large-minded,  with 
one  of  the  best  heads,  it  seems  to  me,  that  the  good 
God  ever  sent ;  more  delicate  however  than  big,  more 
marvelous  for  the  quality  of  his  mind,  its  rare  niceness, 
than  for  that  great  quantity  which  you  see  in  Na- 
poleon, Caesar,  Aristotle,  and  Plato.  He  was  gi'eat- 
hearted,  too,  with  conscience  true  and  sensitive,  and  a 
great  deep  religious  soul.  There  lay  his  strength.  It 
is  not  for  his  masterly  intellect  that  I  value  him  the 
most,  nor  do  you,  nor  does  the  world;  but  for  his  re- 
ligiousness. And  so  we  commonly  underrate  the 
greatness  of  his  intellect.  It  seems  plain  that  he  had 
that  quick  intuition  which  belongs  eminently  to  woman, 
but  which  is  the  attribute  of  every  man  of  high  genius ; 
and  that  great  width  of  comprehension  which  can  gen- 
eralize multiform  principles  to  a  universal  form  of 
truth ;  and  that  perception  which  finds  the  beautiful 
in  things  homely,  the  sublime  in  things  common,  and 
the  eternal  in  what  is  daily  and  transient.  The  man 
of  genius  has  always  the  peculiar  excellence  of  man's 
and  woman's  mind,  is  human,  masculine  and  feminine 
too ;  and  in  all  history  no  great  man  has  been  so  wom- 
anly as  Jesus,  maidenly  and  motherly  both.  Hence, 
on  his  masculine  side,  he  has  awful  severity  against  a 
false  theory,  which  makes  wickedness  and  misery,  and 
builds  dungeons  for  mankind.  Hence,  on  his  womanly 
side,  he  is  so  gentle  and  full  of  tenderness  towards  the 
man  who  holds,  who  administers,  or  who  makes  the 
wicked  theory.     He  hates  sin  with  manly  detestation; 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  323 

the  sinner  he  loves  with  woman's  piety.  He  does  not 
appear  logical  and  philosophical,  but  acute,  sharp- 
sighted,  deep-seeing,  full  of  persuasion,  with  a  natural 
eloquence;  not  the  elocution  of  the  schools,  but  that 
spontaneous  beauty  of  speech  which  belongs  to  a 
great  conscience,  heart,  and  soul,  when  furnished  with 
great  intellect, —  understanding,  reason,  imagination. 
He  was  fierce  as  a  tropic  hurricane  when  he  denounced, 
"  Woe  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees !  "  How  he 
thundered  and  lightened,  a  great  earthquake  of  elo- 
quence, against  the  wickedness  of  his  time !  What  a 
typhoon  of  indignation  he  let  fall  on  the  man-stealers 
of  that  day !  Some  three  years  ago,  when  the  city  of 
Boston  kidnapped  Thomas  Simms,  I  read  those  awful 
passages  which  make  my  blood  run  cold ;  in  private  I 
read  them  and  in  public  too.  It  was  a  good  gospel 
for  that  day,  two  thousand  3'ears  ago ;  alas  me !  it  fitted 
our  time  as  well.  I  hope  never  to  read  them  again  in 
public  or  in  private.  That  was  the  masculine  side  of 
Jesus.  No  spring  sun  was  milder,  softer,  or  more 
tenderly  kissed  the  first  spring  violets  on  the  hillsides 
of  West  Roxbury,  than  he  was  to  the  penitent  and 
self-faithful  soul.  Great  public  sins  he  scourged  and 
cauterized  with  actual  lightning;  there  was  no  other 
way  ;  but  the  individual  sinner  he  took  into  his  motherly 
arms  and  pressed  to  his  bosom,  warmed  him  with  his 
breath,  cheered  and  comforted  and  blessed,  and  then 
laid  him  down  tranquillized  and  beautified  and  sancti- 
fied too,  that  he  might  sleep  and  wake  with  God. 

THE  EXAMPLE  OF  JESUS  A  SOURCE  OF  STRENGTH 

When  such  a  man  as  this  bowed  his  head  on  the 
cross,  with  his  "  My  God !  why  hast  thou  forsaken 
me?  "  and  at  length  with  a  triumphant,  "  Father,  for- 


324  '  THE  WORLD  OP  MATTER  AND  MAN 

give  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do !  " —  it  is 
very  plain  that  death  could  not  hold  his  doctrines 
bound,  nor  prevent  his  character  from  having  a  vast 
and  permanent  influence  on  the  world  of  men.  He 
was  cut  off  in  his  early  manhood,  long  before  great 
men  reach  the  maturity  of  their  intellect,  conscience, 
and  soul.  He  had  just  begun  to  open  his  plans.  Yet 
considering  all  the  circumstances  of  the  age  and  the 
history  of  his  people,  I  think  him  fortunate  in  his 
death,  not  less  than  glorious  in  his  life, —  not  without 
error  of  doctrine,  probably  not  without  defects  of  per- 
sonal character  and  conduct.  Take  him  as  he  was, 
measure  him  by  his  own  age,  and  then  by  other  ages, 
by  his  nation's  standard  and  his  own,  and  then  by  the 
highest  ideal  of  humanity, —  and  you  look  not  only 
with  admiration,  but  with  deepest  gratitude,  with 
heartiest  brotherly  love,  on  this  greatest,  highest, 
purest  of  the  world's  great  reformers  of  religion ;  and 
you  thank  God  and  take  courage  that  you  have 
strength  to  tread  your  own  course,  and  are  sustained 
and  strengthened  by  the  magnificence  of  his  thoughts, 
the  beauty  of  his  life,  and  those  dear  Beatitudes  which, 
through  all  the  storms  of  eighteen  centuries  of  war  and 
bloodshed,  have  come  down  to  us,  whispering  their 
sweet  accents  of  "  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  on 
earth  peace,  good  will  toward  men !  " 

THE  INTEGEITY  OF  JESUS 

From  the  day  when  Jesus  was  nailed  to  the  cross  to 
this  day,  the  whole  human  race  has  been  blessed  by 
the  heroism  which  suffered,  bled,  and  died  there. 
What  if  he  had  known  no  higher  law  than  the  consti- 
tution which  Moses  taught,  and  the  law  which  the 
scribes  and  the  Pharisees  set  up  in  his  name?     Where 


JESUS  OF  NAZARETH  325 

would  we  have  been,  and  what  would  have  been  the  con- 
dition of  the  world  ?  I  suppose  it  is  as  easy  for  a  man 
of  great  genius  to  be  false  to  his  integrity,  as  it  is 
for  you  and  ine, —  and  of  nothing  is  God  so  chary  as 
men  of  great  genius, —  and  if  Jesus  had  refused  his 
allegiance  to  the  truth  of  God,  what  had  the  world 
been  to-day?  Surely  a  thousand  years  behind  what  it 
is  now ;  for  from  that  day  to  this,  there  has  arisen  no 
such  great  religious  genius.  Great  men  there  have 
been, —  I  would  not  deny  it, —  but  no  man's  head  so 
towers  into  the  sky ;  no  other  man  ever  sent  out  such 
streams  of  S3'mpathy  to  men.  To-day,  how  shall  we 
most  truly  revere  him?  As  the  other  churches  do? 
No  !  Not  by  stopping  where  he  stopped,  not  by  warp- 
ing our  spirit  to  suit  his  words ;  but  by  having  the 
same  integrity  of  soul  that  he  had,  by  being  as  faith- 
ful to  our  humble  spirit  as  he  was  to  his  giant  soul. 
He  is  not  the  Christian  who  says,  "  Lord !  Lord !  " 
and  believes  all  the  traditions  writ  here  in  this  book 
in  his  name;  but  they  are  Christians  who  use  their 
faculties  as  Christ  used  his,  who  reverence  their  own 
individuality  of  spirit,  contented  to  think  as  they  must, 
not  as  they  will,  those  who  keep  a  blameless  fidelity 
to  their  own  sense  of  right.  In  that  way,  my  brothers, 
you  and  I,  with  our  humble  powers,  shall  continue  the 
work  which  Christ  began,  and  in  time  the  w^orld  itself 
will  be  a  Christian  world,  even  in  a  higher  sense  than 
Jesus  saw,  and  we  shall  be  as  welcome  sons  of  God 
as  this  great  soul  Christ,  and  in  His  own  time  the 
Father  shall  lay  His  hand  on  our  head  with  this  bene- 
diction, "  Come,  and  inherit  the  kingdom  prepared  for 
you." 


326   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

THE  GOODNESS  OF  JESUS  A  PROPHECY  OF  FUTURE 

GOOD 

This  is  Palm  Sunday.  Some  eighteen  hundred 
years  ago  to-day  there  rode  into  Jerusalem  on  an  ass's 
foal  a  man  who  took  this  view  of  goodness  which  I 
take,  and  had  its  triumph  too.  Not  only  that, —  he 
was  himself  the  goodness  which  I  poorly  recommend ; 
a  man  of  large  intellect,  reason,  and  understanding 
too,  but  of  immense  goodness.  Men  dimly  felt  he  was 
their  king,  commissioned  to  displace  all  false  and  un- 
real kings ;  and  so  they  saw  in  him  the  fulfilment  of 
an  old  and  doubtful  prophecy.  I  see  in  him  the  ful- 
filment of  more  than  that, —  the  fulfilment  of  this 
yearning  of  the  human  heart,  which,  deceived  by  great- 
ness, and  trodden  down  by  its  power,  still  looks  up- 
ward towards  God,  and  asks  for  its  Saviour.  I  see 
in  him  the  coming  of  that  time  when  oppression  shall 
not  always  reign,  but  a  brighter  day  shall  begin ;  when, 
having  passed  by  the  savage  period  when  men  worship 
the  giant  in  body,  we  shall  have  passed  by  a  period 
a  little  less  savage  when  we  reverence  the  great  head, 
not  the  great  arm,  and  shall  come  to  a  time  when  men 
reverence  a  great  conscience,  heart,  and  soul,  and  the 
eminent  men  of  the  world,  so  deemed,  who  rise  up  to 
places  of  preeminence  and  power,  shall  be  men  like 
Jesus  Christ,  and  the  laws  that  they  make  and  the 
example  they  set  shall  be  the  laws  of  God  and  the  life 
of  God  on  this  earth.  This  time  I  know  will  come. 
Christ  is  the  perpetual  prophecy  of  it,  and  my  own 
heart  gives  me  an  ideal  prophecy.  We  need  not  wait 
for  it.  You  can  train  your  children  so  as  to  make 
it  real.     You  can  be  that  goodness  yourselves. 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS 

THE  INFINITE  GOD 

You  and  I  must  needs  lament  over  sorrows  that 
cross  our  several  paths.  When  a  ship  is  wrecked  with 
fire,  we  cannot  understand  how  so  many  lives  should 
be  destroyed  by  a  single  man,  and  we  must  needs 
mourn.  We  must  lament  at  the  sufferings  of  mortal 
men.  But  as  soon  as  we  remember  that  the  Infinite 
Loving-kindness  comes  down  to  every  little  child,  to 
every  thin-winged  fly  that  fastens  itself  upon  the  wall 
of  a  summer's  day,  we  do  not  mourn  as  those  without 
hope ;  but  as  those  that  see  through  the  gate  of  mor- 
tality the  immortal  beyond.  Then  your  daily  life, 
rich  or  poor,  obscure  or  famous,  will  become  more 
beautiful,  its  toils  have  meaning,  its  sufferings  point 
to  the  future,  where  what  here  was  discipline  shall  be 
delight.  Sorrows  are  only  the  hither  side  of  the  world. 
Yonder  it  turns  out  its  silver  lining  to  the  day,  and  is 
radiant  all  over  with  rainbow  beauties  and  descending 
peace;  in  your  consciousness  there  is  serenity,  there 
is  trust,  there  is  tranquillity,  and  a  delight  in  God 
which  nothing  breaks  and  which  nothing  can  even  mar. 

My  friends,  I  am  not  telling  you  the  poor  day- 
dreams of  an  idle  man.  I  am  no  mere  sentimentalist; 
I  look  the  ugliest  facts  of  nature  in  the  face,  the  uglier 
the  closer;  I  never  speak  to  you  but  I  remember  the 
crime  and  the  heartlessness  which  predominate  in  this 
great  commercial  city  ;  I  never  cease  to  remember  that 
my  brothers  are  kidnappers,  and  that  three  millions 
of  my  fellow-creatures  are  the  slaves  of  this  wicked 
327 


328      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

nation.  I  paint  nothing  in  rose  colors.  God  shall 
paint,  not  I.  I  am  not  altogether  ignoi-ant  of  human 
nature,  as  it  is  to  be  learned  by  the  philosophic  study 
of  the  essence  of  man,  or  as  it  slowly  unfolds  itself  in 
the  records  of  human  history.  I  know  men  as  they  are 
to-day,  in  the  house,  and  the  shop,  and  the  field.  I 
am  no  bigot,  blindly  attached  to  a  traditional  creed, 
and  bowing  because  my  fathers  bent  their  heads.  I 
study  the  evolutions  of  religion,  as  the  evolutions  of 
science ;  everywhere  I  find  their  trace,  in  a  heathen  as 
a  Hebrew,  in  a  Mahometan  or  Buddhist  as  in  a  Chris- 
tian, asking  only  for  the  fact.  I  am  no  moonlight 
sentimentalist ;  but  by  hardy  toil,  as  well  as  a  wise  pas- 
siveness,  I  would  feed  my  mind.  And  yet  this  is  the 
sum  of  my  story,  the  result  of  my  philosophy, —  that 
there  is  an  Infinite  God,  perfectly  powerful,  with  no 
limitation  of  power;  perfectly  wise,  knowing  every 
thing,  the  meanest  and  the  vastest,  at  first  as  at  the  end ; 
perfectly  just,  giving  to  every  soul  what  is  promised 
in  its  nature ;  perfectly  loving  and  perfectly  holy. 

The  worship  of  the  Infinite  God,  the  consciousness 
of  His  presence  in  our  hearts, —  that  is  the  sublimest 
triumph,  the  dearest  joy,  the  delightfulest  of  all 
human  delights.  Beginning  here,  it  brightens  and 
brightens  like  the  dawn  of  the  day,  until  it  comes  unto 
perfect  brightness,  and  the  face  of  the  Father  gleams 
on  the  forehead  of  the  son. 

man's  idea  or  god 

Every  people  has  its  idea  of  God,  which  is  the  re- 
sult of  its  history  and  the  measure  of  its  civilization. 
With  the  wild  man  and  the  savage  this  idea  is  very 
rude.     Then  it  becomes  more  elevated,  then  more. 

First,  mere  force  contents  man  in  his  God ;  then  a 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      329 

little  mind  is  added;  then  more  mind  yet;  then  justice 
is  put  there,  then  love.  Mankind  continually  revises 
its  idea  of  God,  because  it  has  the  feeling  that  God 
is  perfection,  and  as  it  develops  the  feeling  into  an 
idea,  the  new  result  must  be  added  to  the  Divine  Being. 
Successively  does  Israel  leave  behind  him  his  gods  for 
newer  and  better  ones ;  the  Unitarian  and  Universalist 
leave  behind  the  Trinity,  that  Cerberus  of  God,  growl- 
ing forever  round  his  endless  hell  of  mankind,  and  fare 
on,  asking  for  higher  and  higher  ideas  of  God.  I  put 
it  to  you,  individually,  and  I  put  it  at  this  minute  to 
Jew,  Gentile,  Christian,  Mahometan,  to  all  throughout 
mankind, —  will  any  thing  content  you  less  than  the 
Infinite  God  of  perfect  power,  perfect  wisdom,  perfect 
justice,  perfect  love.''  And  in  all  the  tongues  of  earth 
does  mankind  answer,  No !  Yea,  with  great  groanings 
which  cannot  be  uttered,  the  ten  hundred  millions  of 
mankind  cry  out,  "  Show  us  the  Father  which  satisfieth 
us !  Give  us  the  infinite  perfection  of  God !  Sure  of 
that,  of  all  else  are  we  likewise  sure."  To  this  high 
end  the  Bibles  of  all  the  nations  have  helped,  writ  in 
many  a  tongue  ;  the  great  philosophers  have  also  helped 
mankind  to  an  appreciation  of  the  true  idea  of  God, 
who  is  Infinite  Power,  Wisdom,  Justice,  Love,  and  Holi- 
ness, Infinite  Cause  and  Providence,  Father  and  Mother 
to  every  worm,  to  every  child,  to  Jesus  who  speaks  the 
world's  great  truth,  to  Peter  who  denied  him,  to 
Iscariot  who  betra^^ed,  and  to  those  other  Peters  and 
Iscariots  who  still  crucify  him  afresh  and  put  him  to 
open  shame. 

KNOWLEDGE   OF   GOD 

The  soul  of  man  connects  him  with  the  world  which 
the  eye  hath  not  seen,  to  which  there  is  no  end,  the 


330      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

world  of  God.  At  first  man  worships  the  Divine  only 
as  force.  But  as  he  grows  from  babyhood  to  child- 
hood, where  now  we  are,  we  prize  in  God  more  than 
force;  we  prize  justice,  holiness,  love.  We  learn  to 
know  the  Infinite  God,  telegraphing  to  us  in  all  the 
high  hours  of  mortal  life ;  we  learn  to  hold  communion 
with  Him,  and  from  the  boundless  ocean  of  Divinity 
to  fill  our  little  cup  with  truth,  with  justice,  love,  and 
trust,  and  oilr  little  spirit  runs  over  with  the  inspira- 
tion which  God  has  poured  therein.  We  learn  to  dwell 
conscious  of  the  Infinite  Father  and  Mother  of  us  all, 
His  truth  in  our  intellect.  His  justice  in  our  conscience, 
His  love  in  our  heart,  His  holiness  in  our  soul.  His  wiU 
our  will,  and  our  life  in  most  intimate  concord  with 
the  eternal  life  of  the  Infinite  Father.  Consciousness 
of  His  perfect  providence  strengthens  our  spirit,  pre- 
pares us  for  daily  work,  for  trial,  for  suffering;  we 
cross  seas  of  trouble,  this  pillar  of  fire  going  before  us 
in  our  darkness ;  we  march  over  wastes  of  sadness  and 
affliction,  this  cloud  over  our  head,  and  eternal  promise 
before  us,  our  shoes  not  worn,  our  raiment  not  waxed 
old  upon  us ;  we  smile  in  trouble,  we  are  bold  in  danger, 
we  are  fearless  in  tribulation,  and  we  are  immortal  in 
death. 

GOD  MANIFEST  IN  ALL  HIS  WORKS 

Three  hundred  years  ago  men  said  it  was  wicked 
to  study  this  world ;  almost  all  the  clergy  of  Europe 
said  so.  To  know  God,  said  they,  you  must  read  the 
Scriptures ;  —  not  those  from  our  Father's  hand,  under 
our  feet  and  over  our  heads,  but  only  the  Hebrew  of 
the  Old  Testament  and  the  Greek  of  the  New.  Now 
men  find  the  handwriting  of  God  in  the  flower  that 
springs  up  in  the  sidewalk  of  the  city,  and  that  the 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      331 

Ten  Commandments  are  writ  on  every  fiber  of  the 
human  body,  and  that  God's  law  is  writ  in  the  solar 
system,  and  in  the  swing  of  the  pendulum  in  yonder 
monument,  true  to  the  higher  law  of  God.  See  how 
the  philosophy  of  man's  nature  is  studied.  With  the 
same  freedom  that  the  naturalist  drops  his  plummet 
into  the  shallows  of  the  ocean,  not  fearing  to  expose 
the  secrets  of  God  hid  in  the  deep,  the  metaphysician 
with  reverent  hand  drops  his  plummet  into  the  deeps 
of  the  human  soul,  with  the  same  absolute  confidence 
in  God.  So  men  study  the  history  of  man,  pass 
through  the  gates  of  the  Hebrew  Eden,  and  find  huge 
empires,  with  cities,  and  states,  and  arts,  and  arms, 
far  before  Moses.  But  the  same  blessed  features  of 
the  Eternal  Father  do  they  find ;  the  same  religion 
waits  upon  their  footsteps,  the  same  love  sheds  down  its 
sunlight  on  saint  and  sinner. 

NO  ABSOLUTE  EVIL  IN  GOD  OR  HIS  WORKS 

Mankind  will  outgrow  this  belief,  which  has  hitherto 
prevailed  in  the  theologies  of  the  world,  that  there  is 
a  devil  outside  of  God,  or  a  worse  devil  of  malignity 
inside  of  him.  As  fast  as  we  understand  the  material 
world,  will  God's  wisdom,  power,  and  goodness  come 
forth.  Then  as  we  cultivate  the  nobler  faculties  in  us, 
will  all  fear  of  God  vanish.  Then  we  shall  see  that  the 
terrible  evils  which  disturb  the  world  —  slavery,  war, 
dininkenness,  the  despot's  oppression,  the  priest's 
hypocrisy  —  are  only  a  part  of  the  divine  purpose, 
means  for  to-day,  not  ends  forever;  they  are  to  the 
world  of  riian,  what  night  and  darkness  and  storm  and 
earthquake  are  to  the  world  of  matter;  and  this  prate 
of  hell  is  but  the  cry  of  a  child,  who  shall  one  day 
grow  up  to  manhood,  and  sing  lofty  psalms  with  noble 


332   THE  WORLD  OP  MATTER  AND  MAN 

human  voice.  Then  we  shall  find  that  the  pain  which 
we  thought  a  mere  tormentor,  sent  to  vex  us,  was  but 
a  watch-dog  which  the  Eternal  Father  set  as  sentinel 
by  the  cradle  of  His  child,  to  keep  watch  over  the  desire 
of  all  nations.  Then  we  shall  see  that  death,  which 
man  once  thought  came  from  the  devil's  envy,  is  only 
birth  out  of  the  mortal  into  the  immortal;  the  earth 
for  a  time  broods  over  the  mortal  body,  laid  in  its  ma- 
terial nest,  and  out  of  that  egg  the  never-dying  soul 
comes  forth,  a  bird  of  paradise  to  fly  along  the  gardens 
of  heaven,  and  sing  its  psalms  of  praise  and  thanks- 
giving and  delight,  filled  with  that  perfect  love  which 
casts  out  fear. 

Science  prepares  him  for  his  task,  and  surveys  the 
round  world,  noticing  the  inorganic  and  the  organic 
and  moving  things  therein,  goes  down  under  the  bot- 
tom of  the  world,  and  there  reads  the  hieroglyphic 
writing  of  God  in  the  sand  which  for  a  million  of  years 
has  never  seen  the  light ;  files  through  the  vast  universe, 
and  then  comes  rounding  back  with  this  everlasting 
testimony,  which  he  has  learned  from  the  material 
world, — "  Everywhere  have  I  found  power  Immense, 
wisdom  unbounded,  law,  a  constant  mode  of  operation, 
whereby  this  wisdom  directs  this  power  for  a  purpose 
ever  good,  never  evil."  And  while  he  sings  that  psalm, 
for  a  sublimer  search  he  goes  down  into  the  depths 
of  human  nature,  and  opens  the  ark  of  God's  covenant 
in  the  innermost  of  human  consciousness,  and  finds 
written, — "  God  is  infinitely  perfect,  perfect  Power, 
Wisdom,  Justice,  and  All-embracing  Love.  He  has 
made  the  universe  from  a  perfect  motive,  for  a  perfect 
end,  provided  it  with  perfect  means,  and  therein  se- 
cured blessedness  for  every  man."  Then  from  the 
world  of  matter  there   seems  to  go   up   one   glorious 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      333 

psalm,  echoed  from  the  flowers  of  earth,  each  blossom 
and  little  berry  ringing  its  chime,  and  from  the  stars 
of  heaven  each  mighty  orb  re-echoes  the  psalm, — 
"  Tell  to  man  that  perfect  love  shall  cast  out 

EEAE." 


GOD  S  LAW 

Look  beneath  you !  With  what  magnificence  of 
peaceful  order  did  the  harvests  of  use,  and  beauty  also, 
come  out  from  the  ground,  all  summer  long !  They 
kept  their  law,  and,  year  by  year,  the  whole  world  of 
beasts  and  men  is  fed  abundantly  thereby.  Look 
above  you !  With  what  sublimity  the  moon  walks 
through  the  sky,  the  stars  keep  their  eternal  order, 
the  planets  wheel  with  mathematic  regularity,  and  the 
unorganized  fragments  of  the  solar  system,  the  comets, 
with  "  tresses  and  trains  of  colder  and  feebler  light," 
dance  their  parabolic  courses  along  the  sky,  and  never 
flirt  their  robes  in  wantonness  against  sun  or  moon  or 
earth  or  star !  It  is  a  natural  law  which  "  doth  pre- 
serve the  stars  from  wrong ;  "  it  is  that  by  which  "  the 
most  ancient  heavens  are  fresh  and  strong."  And  do 
you  think  that  self-conscious,  self-directing  man  — 
,with  whom  the  continuous  progressive  development  of 
his  nature  is  the  aim  and  end  —  can  thrive  without 
keeping  that  eternal  law  of  right  which  God  wrote  in 
us  for  our  rule  of  conduct,  personal  and  social? 

Cowardice  and  Fear  may  say,  "  I  must !  "  Passion 
or  Ambition,  "  I  would !  "  Caprice,  "  I  will !  "  But 
when  Conscience  says,  "  Thou  should'st !  Thou 
ought'st ! "  then  say  thou,  O  man,  O  woman,  "  I 
shall !  "  and  the  stars  in  their  courses  will  fight  for  you, 
and  the  eternal  perfection  of  God  will  be  on  your  side. 


334   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

THE  TRANSIENT  AND  THE  ETERNAL 

I  know  how  men  sometimes  admire  a  human  statute 
which  violates  the  law  of  God,  how  they  glorify  the 
man  who  made  it,  while  they  forget  the  eternal  right, 
written  as  those  sparkling  stars  all  over  the  sky, 
written  in  our  own  hearts.  I  know  how  they  pass 
men  by,  and  call  them  fanatics  and  infidels  and 
traitors,  who  simply  declare  they  will  never  violate 
God's  law  at  the  command  of  men.  You  see  this 
in  Congress,  in  the  newspapers,  and  everywhere 
around  you.  So  have  I  seen  children,  some  of  the 
larger  growth,  admire  a  sky-rocket.  "  How  beauti- 
ful !  "  they  exclaim.  "  How  high  it  shoots,  and  what 
a  shower  of  golden  rain  it  scatters  down !  What  a 
man  he  must  have  been  who  could  have  devised  this ! 
Honor  to  the  city  which  spends  money  for  playthings 
in  the  sky !  "  Meanwhile,  far  above  the  heads  of  the 
rocket-makers  and  admirers,  there  shone  a  fair  and 
noiseless  star.  Millions  of  years  had  it  been  there, 
millions  of  years  to  come  it  will  be  there,  "  a  thing 
of  beauty  and  a  joy  forever."  Far  off  on  the  perilous 
ocean  the  storm-tossed  mariner,  ignorant  of  his  where- 
abouts, not  having  seen  sun  nor  moon  nor  star  for 
many  days,  on  some  gloomy  night  looks  up  to  heaven, 
and  through  a  rent  in  the  clouds  above  him,  the  star 
is  shining  there  serene  and  beautiful ;  and  seeing  its 
welcome  light,  as  dear  to  him  as  smile  of  wife  or  child, 
he  knows  thereby  the  spot  he  occupies  in  space,  and, 
guided  by  this  trusty  messenger  that  cheers  him  home, 
comes  safely  bounding  over  the  deep,  and  moors  his 
star-conducted  ship  safe  in  her  destined  port.  Mean- 
time also  the  astronomer  in  his  watch-tower,  heedless 
of  the  fireflies  of  man,  over  the  puppet-show  of  powder 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      335 

in  the  sky,  looks  on  that  fair  orb,  a  point  unchanging 
in  a  world  of  flux,  and  learns  to  measure  the  slow  and 
solemn  vibration  of  this  boundless  system  of  suns  and 
worlds  and  moons,  knowing  thereby  our  whereabouts 
in  space,  to  what  corner  of  the  universe  this  globe  and 
its  kindred  orbs  are  tending  on.  So  amid  all  the  jar- 
ring of  parties,  the  noise  of  politicians,  and  the  golden 
rain  of  expediency  and  compromise,  "  duty  exists,  im- 
mutably survives,"  and  shines  continually  though  it 
"  lowly  lies,"  obedient  to  that  "  light  that  changes 
not  in  heaven." 

Many  a  politician  bids  us  look  only  at  the  spangling 
rockets,  all  heedless  of  the  constitution  of  the  eternal 
God.  Men  admire  him  and  applaud  him,  and  he  goes 
up  like  his  own  rocket,  and  comes  down  like  the  stick. 
But  still  there  shine  the  ever-living  laws  of  God ;  they 
hold  on  their  way,  altering  not,  forever  still  the  same, 
to  guide  all  men  to  peace  and  port,  a  fixed  station  in 
a  world  of  flux,  to  show  us  the  vibration  of  these  hu- 
man orbs,  and  teaching  us  our  whereabouts  in  moral 
space,  our  thitherwards  towards  heaven  or  hell. 

THE  JOY  OF  KEEPING  GOD's  HIGHER  LAW 
You  know  how  preachers  often  speak  of  the  joys  of 
this  life.  I  think  they  are  apt  to  undervalue  them. 
They  make  light  of  success,  of  riches,  of  comfort,  of 
the  joys  of  a  happy  home.  I  love  these  joys,  and 
every  day  I  thank  my  God  by  a  constant  cheerfulness 
for  what  of  them  I  have  received  or  won.  I  say  I 
think  these  joys  are  undervalued;  and  yet  they  may 
be  estimated  too  high.  But  the  joys  of  goodness,  of 
charity,  of  love  to  man,  and  love  to  God,  that  faith 
which  never  wavers, —  no  man  ever  exaggerated  these, 
no  man  can ;  as  no  painter  can  ever  portray  the  sparkle 


836   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

in  a  star,  or  paint  the  varied  beauty  of  a  rose,  or  the 
sweet  fragrance  embosomed  in  a  lily's  cup ;  for  the 
imagination  of  man  cannot  come  up  to  the  fact,  and 
speech  delays  behind.  All  this  joy  comes  to  indi- 
viduals from  personal  faithfulness  to  God's  higher 
law. 

Nor  is  this  quite  all.  Soon  we  must  leave  behind  us 
all  the  things  that  we  gather  here.  The  honors  will 
go  back  to  such  as  gave  them ;  our  gold  and  silver  and 
houses  and  lands  will  belong  to  others,  and  we  shall  go 
out  of  the  world  with  nothing  but  our  manhood. 
Then  of  what  avail  will  it  be  to  us  that  we  scorned 
God's  higher  law,  and  grew  respectable,  and  won 
honors  though  we  had  nothing  to  attach  them  to  our- 
selves ;  but  with  a  single  breath  death  blew  them  all 
away,  and  scattered  them  over  the  world.''  What  will 
it  avail  us  to  have  passed  for  giants,  when  at  the  touch 
of  death,  the  giant  leaves  his  empty  robes  and  the 
painted  parchment  of  his  reputation,  and  slinks  out  of 
earth  with  a  soul  no  bigger  than  a  baby's  newly  bom.'' 
At  a  theater  you  shall  see  a  man  who  in  a  play's  brief 
hour,  with  tragic  strut,  fills  out  the  part  of  some  great 
duke  or  emperor;  but  when  the  curtain  falls,  and  the 
footlights,  and  the  headlights,  and  the  sidelights  are 
put  out,  the  palace  of  pasteboard  shoved  aside,  and 
the  wardrobe  thrown  in  a  corner,  the  actor,  jostled  by 
the  audience,  forgetting  his  umbrella  even,  foots  it 
towards  his  home,  to  be  teased  by  his  children,  and 
scolded  by  his  wife,  and  the  next  day  dunned  by  his 
creditors.  So  it  is  with  this  poor  man,  who  the  night 
before  seemed  lord  of  all.  So  must  it  be  with  men  who 
gain  what  others  reckon  greatness,  by  violation  of 
God's  higher  law. 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      337 

RECOGNITION  OF  GOD  AND  TRUST  IN   HIS  MEANS 

The  most  beautiful  and  tender  of  all  human  emo- 
tions are  connected  with  God.  The  strongest  and  the 
deepest  are  those  which  directly  join  us  with  Him,  and 
bind  us  to  Him ;  for  religion  is  the  great  gravitation  of 
the  soul  of  man  for  time  and  for  eternity,  holding  us 
to  the  central  point  of  all  the  universe.  Other  emo- 
tions which  relate  to  things  merely  of  time  and  sense 
we  love  to  associate  with  God,  and  thereby  sanctify 
still  further  our  daily  work.  We  love,  in  times  of 
sorrow,  to  anticipate  the  heavenly  rainbow  which  the 
eternal  sun  will  cast  about  the  shoulders  of  each 
thunder-cloud,  scarfing  therewith  the  destroying  arm. 
In  the  night  of  sorrow,  when  our  eyes  fail  from  looking 
upwards,  not  finding  a  single  star  in  all  the  terror  of 
the  sk}^  we  love  to  cast  forn-ard  our  thoughts  to  the 
morning  which  will  scatter  the  darkness,  and  pour  the 
purple  light  on  all  the  hills.  What  is  not  immediately 
religious  we  love  to  make  so  by  implication.  So  the 
thoughtful  man  is  glad  to  anticipate  his  daily  toil  with 
a  prayer,  full  of  eternity,  and  to  round  off  his  work 
with  a  twilight  psalm  of  thankfulness  and  praise,  mak- 
ing the  work  that  is  to  be  done,  and  that  which  is 
already  finished,  like  a  sacrament.  Consciousness  of 
God  runs  thrugh  all  a  good  man's  life,  like  the  Nile 
through  Egypt,  making  a  garden  on  either  side,  cre- 
ating bread  and  beauty  wherever  its  waters  fall  to  rest. 
The  net  of  humanity,  full  of  all  manner  of  toils  and 
cares  and  weepings  and  joys,  is  knit  by  the  four 
corners,  and  let  down  from  heaven,  and  the  voice  of 
God  tells  us,  "  Call  not  thou  common  that  which  God 
hath  cleansed." 

In  nature  God  is  all  about  us,  a  presence  not  to  be 
XI— 22 


338   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

put  by,  the  moving  of  all  motion,  the  living  of  all  life, 
the  loving  spirit  in  all  that  loves,  and  the  being  of  all 
things  that  are.  A  man  naturally  devout  loves  to 
connect  God  with  all  the  material  world.  Even  the 
rudest  men  who  notice  the  power  that  is  in  the  material 
universe,  connect  God  with  all  that  is  sublime  and 
awful.  What  makes  them  shudder  and  turn  sick  at 
heart, —  the  thunder,  the  earthquake,  and  the  storm 
to  them  is  God's  voice.  But  gentler  and  more  refined 
men  see  God  in  the  beautiful.  The  little  grass  is 
rooted  in  God,  and  every  rose  fills  its  cup  brimful  of 
Deity.  He  rounds  and  beautifies  the  spot  on  the  wing 
of  a  butterfly,  and  decks  each  microscopic  insect  with 
brilliant  loveliness,  and  gives  the  spider  her  curious 
art  to  spin  and  weave,  and  walk  the  waters  dry-shod, 
with  no  pretending  miracle.  Philosophers  well-bred 
love  to  associate  God  with  all  the  works  which  we  call 
nature.  He  is  the  great  weaver,  and  nature  is  His 
living  web,  ever  old,  ever  new,  where  static  and  dynamic 
forces  put  in  the  warp  and  woof ;  and  from  the  various 
threads,  mineral,  vegetable,  animal,  human,  he  weaves 
up  the  most  complex  patterns,  glittering  with  chemic, 
botanic,  vital,  spiritual  power.  Everywhere  the  phi- 
losophers meet  God ;  they  find  footprints  of  the  Creator 
in  the  old  red  sandstone,  in  each  atom  thereof;  and 
in  the  chemic  mysteries  of  a  leaf  or  a  grain  of  com 
they  find  the  wisdom  of  God,  and  in  that  wonderful 
power  by  which  the  fresh  maiden  beauty  of  to-day 
comes  out  of  New  England's  cold  ground,  and  makes 
summer  loveliness  all  round  the  town.  Astronomic 
Mr.  Mitchell,  at  Nantucket,  from  his  high  tower  turns 
his  telescope  to  some  far-off  star,  and  as  its  flowery 
light  crosses  his  eye,  with  pious  reverence  he  wipes 
a  tear  away,  thinking  the  far-off  light  is  a  whisper  of 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      339 

God  that  missed  his  ear,  and  now  comes  impinging  on 
his  eye.  In  times  when  no  false  theology  intervenes 
between  the  philosopher's  cultivated  mind  and  the  in- 
stinctive religious  sense  in  his  soul,  then  he  sees  that 
the  laws  of  heaven  are  only  God's  great  geometry, 
and  in  the  intersecting  lines  in  the  section  of  an  ele- 
phant's tooth  he  finds  the  same  thought  which  God  has 
made  fossil  in  the  stones  beneath  his  feet.  Then 
nature  seems  dearer  to  us  when  through  it  we  see  God. 
I  can  trust  the  finite  universe  when  I  know  it  all  rests 
on  the  Infinite  God,  that  the  ocean  rolls  at  His  com- 
mand, and  by  His  unwavering  laws  the  summer  poplar- 
leaves  are  twinkling  all  day  in  the  light  poured  down 
from  Him.  Then  the  all-absorbing  ocean  loses  its  cruel 
look,  and  all  things  instinct  with  life  are  instinct  not 
less  with  God. 

Not  less,  but  even  more,  do  we  love  to  associate  God 
with  man,  and  weave  religion's  golden  thread  through 
all  the  fabric  of  our  daily  life.  So  men  delight  to 
connect  the  Deity  with  the  great  forces  of  the  nation. 
Say  the  Hebrew  prophets.  It  was  Jehovah  who  brought 
up  Israel  out  of  Egypt,  and  by  His  right  hand  led  the 
people  across  the  sea.  "  Remember  His  marvelous 
works  that  He  hath  done.  His  statutes  and  His  judg- 
ments," says  one  of  the  greatest  of  poets.  "  As  an 
eagle  stirreth  up  her  nest,  fluttereth  over  her  young, 
spreadeth  abroad  her  wings,  taketh  them,  beareth  them 
on  her  wings,"  so  the  Lord  brought  up  Israel  out  of 
Egypt,  they  say.  You  and  I  love  to  say  it  was  the 
Lord  who  lifted  our  fathers  across  the  untrodden  sea, 
and  planted  a  vine  in  the  wilderness,  watered  and  tended 
and  trained  it  up.  All  nations  feel  this,  and  in  mani- 
fold mythologic  speech  love  to  set  forth  the  fact  of 
God's    universal    providence,    which    they    see    not    at 


340   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

large,  folding  all  nations  into  one  embrace  of  loving- 
kindness,  but  they  see  it  each  in  its  own  special  history, 
and  no  more.  So  all  nations  love  to  begin  their  great 
acts  with  some  religious  sign  and  symbol  that  they 
recognize  only  God  as  supreme.  So  of  old  time,  when 
men  founded  a  city,  built  a  bridge,  pitched  a  camp,  it 
was  a  voluntary  sacrifice,  their  choicest  offering  made 
in  acknowledgment  of  God.  Now  on  such  occasions, 
it  is  a  psalm,  a  hymn,  or  some  spoken  word  of  prayer 
by  which  God  is  acknowledged. 

Not  less  does  the  individual  man  love  to  connect 
religion  with  his  common  life  in  all  its  greatest  acts. 
All  the  world  over  marriage  is  a  sacrament,  a  religious 
act,  and  connubial  love  is  but  a  fragment  of  the  soul's 
great  love  of  God,  and  when  that  fresh  jewel  glitters 
on  the  bride's  and  bridegroom's  heart,  they  love  to  look 
to  that  rock  whence  the  splendid  particle  was  broken 
off.  At  the  birth  of  a  baby,  with  a  religious  thought, 
father  and  mother  take  the  nursling  in  their  arms,  and 
look  in  the  newly  opened  eyes,  and  give  the  child  their 
benediction  and  a  name;  and  when  you  and  I  shall 
receive  the  heavenly  birth,  with  religious  emotion  men 
will  take  up  our  cold  clay  and  lay  it  in  its  last  cradle, 
which  then  shall  hold  nothing  but  the  flesh,  and  their 
thought  shall  follow  our  ascending  soul.  Birth,  mar- 
riage, death,  are  all  marked  by  religion,  each  a  sacra- 
ment. Men  love  to  have  it  so.  It  is  not  the  craft  of 
priests  alone,  it  is  great  Nature  working  at  our  heart. 
The  stream  of  religion  comes  down  from  the  tall  moun- 
tains of  humanity,  fed  from  the  virgin  snows  which  the 
Infinite  God  places  thereon,  and  it  runs  journeying 
thence  through  all  the  plains  of  mortal  life  to  the  far- 
off  ocean  of  eternity.  We  set  up  our  little  mills 
thereby,  and  it  turns  the  wheel  of  the  priest,  but  he 


.    MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      341 

makes  not  the  stream  more  than  the  miller  makes  the 
Merrimac,  or  the  sailor  the  ocean  he  traverses.  So 
in  all  our  life  we  love  to  look  up,  and  reverence,  and 
trust.  The  deep  of  humanity  in  us  calls  to  the  deep 
of  divinity  in  God.  We  love  to  lie  low  in  His  hand, 
and  trust;  it  is  a  calm  and  holy  joy.  We  want  some- 
thing secure.  How  transient  and  movable  are  the 
waters !  We  drop  our  anchor  down  till  it  touches  the 
bottom,  and  we  have  holding  ground  in  God,  and  feel 
safe.  Thou,  0  Lord,  art  eternal,  our  fathers'  resting- 
place  and  our  God.  In  our  joy  it  is  more  joyous  to 
remember  the  deep  well  of  Deity  whence  we  have  filled 
our  little  cup;  when  our  household  doves  are  drinking 
from  the  brim,  we  love  to  remember  that  the  w^ater  was 
itself  rained  down  from  heaven,  and  is  God's  cup  of 
communion  with  mankind.  And  when  we  are  washed 
away  by  some  great  sorrow,  and  in  our  distress  we  are 
bowed  together,  and  in  nowise  able  to  lift  ourselves  up, 
we  still  love  to  remember  that  the  stream  which  bears 
us  is  the  river  of  God,  and  will  one  day  carry  us 
through  the  gates  of  heaven.  There  are  times  of 
grief  for  public  calamity,  which  make  us  shudder  and 
grow  sick  at  heart,  when  w^e  go  stooping  and  feeble, 
with  failing  eyes  and  trembling  heart,  and  it  is  great 
comfort  then  to  look  up  and  trust  in  God. 

I  know  not  how  men  live  without  this.  In  the  hey- 
day of  joy  the  shallow  man  may  be  content,  and  when 
the  nation  mourns  he  may  sit  down  and  eat  and  drink 
and  make  merry,  heedless  of  the  ruin  wrought  about 
him,  perhaps  by  his  own  hand.  But  even  then,  to  the 
shallowest  of  men  there  will  come  a  day  when  eating 
does  not  satisfy,  and  drinking  does  not  fill  the  man, 
and  when  his  mean  soul  turns  in  upon  himself  and 
finds  no  comfort  save  in  his  God. 


342   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

It  is  a  great  thing  therefore  to  know  that  there 
is  a  power  and  a  wisdom  which  guides  us  and  the  world, 
stilHng  the  noise  of  the  waves  and  the  tumult  of  the 
people;  to  feel  that  there  is  a  justice  immense,  immeas- 
urable, irresistible,  which  sways  the  ocean  of  human 
forces,  and  whereof  we  recognize  the  tidal  pulsations 
in  our  private  heart ;  and  to  trust  the  love  unbounded  in 
its  power,  more  than  motherly  in  its  quality,  to  rely 
thereon,  to  be  sure  thereof,  to  be  satisfied  therewith. 
When  evil  men  rule  on  earth,  and  violent  are  exalted, 
when  the  wicked  walk  on  every  side,  when  noble  men 
are  cloven  down,  then  it  is  sweet  to  remember  the  Holy 
One  who  foresaw  it  all,  and  knows  there  is  a  morning 
which  is  to  come  out  of  all  this  darkness  and  shame  it 
into  day.  Let  me  know  there  is  an  Infinite  Cause  which 
makes  the  world  aright,  an  Infinite  Providence  which 
rules  the  world  aright, —  I  will  not  fear  what  men  can 
do  to  me ;  troubled  on  every  side,  I  am  not  distressed ; 
perplexed,  not  in  despair ;  persecuted,  not  forsaken ; 
cast  down,  not  destroyed.  Every  earnest  man  feels  this, 
and  to  come  to  this  is  a  great  step  forAvard. 

This  consciousness  of  trust  in  God  is  not  only  a 
strength  and  defense,  it  is  a  source  of  deep  and  sweet 
delight ;  nay,  it  is  so  delightful  that  contemplative  and 
dreamy  men  have  loved  to  let  themselves  down  into  the 
depths  of  this  tranquillity,  and  rejoice  in  the  Lord, 
when  there  seemed  nothing  else  left  to  rejoice  in.  In 
pleasant  days  they  kept  abroad ;  but  when  the  public 
weather  became  harsh,  and  rough,  and  stem,  the 
stormier  things  were  without,  the  farther  they  with- 
drew within.  So  when  the  skies  are  fair,  and  the  tropic 
ocean  waves  are  still  as  the  mirror  wherein  some  maiden 
knows  the  beauty  of  her  face,  the  paper  nautilus 
swims  on  the  surface  of  the  summer  sea,  and  fears  not 
while  the 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      343 

"  Little  breezes  dusk  and  shiver  " 

around  her  handsome  shell.  But  when  the  clouds 
darken  in  the  sky,  and  tempests  lower,  and  the  winds 
begin  to  roar,  and  the  waves  to  swell,  she  sinks  without 
a  murmur  to  the  deep,  thence  to  a  deeper  deep,  where 
all  is  calm  and  still,  and  so  her  frail  shell  survives  the 
storm  that  rends  the  ocean's  breast  above.  Many  a 
religious  book  has  been  written  by  such  men,  full  of 
sweetness  and  piety,  and  running  over  with  trust. 
Such  are  the  works  of  William  Law,  Saint  Bridget, 
Saint  Theresa,  Madame  Guyon,  Fenelon,  and  many 
more.  Once  in  my  early  boyhood's  days  they  were 
a  deep  delight  to  me,  and  when  the  little  ocean  of  my 
private  world  was  vexed  with  storms,  I  too  could  sink 
down  to  this  calm,  blessed  water,  and  pray,  and  dream, 
and  rest  in  God.  There  are  many  such.  Sick,  they 
wait  for  the  Good  Physician  to  come  and  heal  them ; 
penitent  prodigals,  they  fold  their  arms  and  wait  for 
the  Father  to  come  to  them ;  impotent  folk,  they  wait 
for  the  angel  to  trouble  Bethesda's  pool,  and  dip  their 
passive  forms  into  its  waters,  and  heal  them  of  their 
hurt.  This  is  a  form  of  trust  in  God  which  Christian 
churches  love  to  preach, —  this  idle,  passive  trust,  ly- 
ing in  God's  hand,  or  man's,  and  asking  God  to  do  our 
work,  waiting  for  God's  providence  to  do  without  us. 
So  in  Mahometan  countries  the  plague  comes  into  a 
city,  Bagdad,  Damascus,  Constantinople;  the  authori- 
ties are  all  still,  it  is  the  will  of  God,  say  they;  the 
people  are  all  still,  it  is  the  will  of  God ;  the  priests  only 
pray,  "  God's  will  be  done !  His  purposes  are  right," 
—  and  the  pestilence  walks  at  noon-day,  with  none  to 
bar  the  city  gates. 

But  a  manly  trust  in  God  is  much  more  than  this 
girlish  feeling.     This  is   indeed  tinist  in  God's  prov- 


344   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

idence,  in  His  purposes,  confidence  in  His  character  as  a 
perfect  Creator  and  perfect  Providence ;  it  is  a  certain 
acknowledgment   that   he,    hke    a    wise    engineer,    sets 
thing  against  thing,  and  makes  a  perfect  machine  out 
of  all  the  universe,  which,  each  part  doing  its  duty, 
shall  bring  about  at  last  a  perfect  result  as  his  ultimate 
end.     It  is  a  great  step,  I  confess,  to  arrive  at  this, 
either  brought  to  it  by  one  synthetic  act  of  instinctive 
religious  consciousness,  or  by  a  long  process  of  reason- 
ing, deductive,  inductive,  transcendent.     It  is  full  of 
comfort  when  we  have  reached  it.     As  a  sentiment  of 
faith  in  God,  as  a  mere  feeling  of  faith  triumphant 
over  every  doubt  and  every  fear,  it  is  of  great  use. 
When  suffering  comes  it  enables  a  man  to  lay  his  head 
on  the  block,  to  spread  his  arms  out  for  crucifixion; 
it  gives  men  courage  to  endure ;  "  God  will  repay  us," 
they  say.     There  is  never  in  time  of  trouble  any  lack 
of  that  sort  of  courage,   and  of  this   trust  in   God. 
The  Jews  have  made  their  name  classic  by  this  kind  of 
fortitude ;  the  early  Christians  abound  in  it ;  so  do  the 
Mahometans,  so  the  early  Quakers,  and  so  the  Puritans. 
But  that  is  not  all ;  it  is  not  half.     Trust  in  God  is 
trust  in  His  purposes,  no  doubt;  but  likewise  in  the 
means  which  led  thereto,  in  the  forces  of  men.     The 
purposes  are  divine,  are  they.''     No  doubt  of  it.     But 
the  means  are  all  human.     Mahometanism  spread  by 
human  art ;  Hebrew  faith  by  Hebrew  courage  and  He- 
brew toil  went  abroad ;  and  the  faith  of  the  Christians, 
who  met  together  in   a  little  upper  room   in  Galilee, 
became  the  world's  faith  by  human  heads  and  human 
hands    and   human    life.     God   wrought   no    miracles. 
Prayer  is  an  excellent  thing ;  it  is  the  preface  to  work, 
it  is  the  preface  to  this  great  Bible ;  it  is  not  the  Bible 
itself,  it  is  not  the  work;  it  is  the  grace  before  meat, 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      345 

it  is  not  the  food.  I  mean  the  verbal  prayer.  A 
man  makes  a  pra^^er  to  God,  which  is  a  great  effort  of 
his  soul ;  it  stirs  him  to  his  very  depths,  and  out  of 
that  stirring  there  comes  work. 

The  celestial  mechanism  of  the  sky  is  wrought  out 
of  material  things ;  there  is  no  thought  but  God's,  no 
will  but  the  Eternal's ; 


though 


"  Nor  real  voice  nor  sound 
Amid  the  radiant  orbs  is  found;' 

In  reason's  ear  they  all  rejoice. 
And  utter  forth  a  glorious  voice." 


That  mechanism  bears  up  the  daily  or  nocturnal  beauty 
of  the  heavens,  but  the  heavens  know  it  not ;  the  sun  is 
heedless  matter,  obedient,  passive,  not  willing ;  so  is  it 
with  the  botanic  mechanism  of  the  ground,  green  or 
blossoming  with  all  New  England's  vari-colored  vege- 
table life.  In  heaven  above,  in  earth  beneath,  all  is 
heedless  mechanism,  not  conscious  life.  These  material 
things  are  only  the  basis  whereon  man,  out  of  living 
stone,  by  his  own  work,  is  to  build  himself  a  temple 
to  God.  In  this  human  mechanism  every  wheel  is 
conscious  and  self-moved.  We  are  instruments  of  God, 
but  we  are  voluntary  workmen,  not  passive  tools. 
The  North  Star,  if  it  had  consciousness,  might  be 
supposed  to  be  content  to  be  passive  and  merely  trust 
the  purposes  of  God.  But  you  and  I  must  trust  also 
the  means  of  God,  and  apply  them  to  reach  His  end. 
These  means  are  human,  they  are  you  and  I,  our  pow- 
ers to  think,  to  will,  to  do. 

Now,  trust  in  God  demands  that  we  apply  God's 
means,  in  God's  way,  for  God's  ends.  That  is  what  we 
are  here  for.  The  farmer  trusts  in  God,  but  he  does 
not  think  God  will  fill  his  bam  with  summer  hay,  nor 


346   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

with  autumn  corn  ;  he  trusts  the  means  of  God,  ploughs 
well  his  land,  toils  with  the  sweat  of  his  own  brow  and 
the  labor  of  his  oxen ;  he  enriches  the  soil,  culls  out  the 
nicest  seeds,  sows  them  with  care,  and  all  the  summer 
long  he  daily  tends  the  plants  his  skill  has  brought  out 
of  the  ground.  Does  he  trust  God  the  less  for  the  end, 
because  he  uses  the  means  thereto?  No  sailor  thinks  he 
can  pray  himself  across  the  sea ;  he  wants  a  stout  ship, 
compass,  charts,  the  appliances  of  scientific  skill.  Does 
he  trust  God  the  less  because  he  confides  in  the  natural 
means  which  God  provided  to  reach  his  end?  It  has 
been  a  great  error  of  religious  men  to  scorn  the  human 
means,  while  looking  for  the  human  end.  They  call 
efforts  to  achieve  the  end  by  human  means  "  tempting 
Providence,"  "  leaning  on  an  arm  of  flesh."  Ah  me ! 
God  gave  us  arms  of  flesh ;  they  are  arms  to  lean  on,  to 
work  with,  the  instruments  of  God's  spirit.  It  is  in 
vain  to  say  that  we  trust  God  to  avert  any  harm,  and 
do  nothing,  to  rely  on  prayer  without  any  work.  A 
prayer  of  that  sort  is  only  a  puff  of  wind.  I  do  not 
ask  God  to  write  a  sermon  for  me,  nor  to  select  a  hymn, 
nor  to  send  a  message  to  New  York.  He  has  put  means 
in  my  power  for  these  things ;  if  I  use  not  the  means, 
it  is  because  I  do  not  trust  Him.  Here  is  a  young  man, 
poor  in  the  material  things  of  earth,  which  he  longs 
for  as  a  basis  for  a  nobler  purpose.  Rich  in  genius, 
he  wants  education,  the  best  the  age  can  afford  him. 
In  the  silence  of  his  chamber,  in  some  rude  New  Eng- 
land town,  he  prays  mightily  to  God,  with  sweaty  brow 
and  clasped  hands,  prays  for  culture,  for  means  of 
growth ;  and  as  he  feeds  his  father's  swine,  or  hews 
wood,  or  toils  in  the  dusty  field  on  long  summer  days, 
his  prayers  go  up  to  God, — "  Give  me  the  culture  that 
I  want,  which  my  heart  hungers  and  thirsts  for."     He 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      347 

trusts  in  God,  but  assiduous  toil  must  supply  the  means 
to  go  betwixt  his  prayer  and  the  end  he  seeks ;  no  in- 
spiration shall  teach  him  mathematics,  no  angel  comes 
down  from  heaven  to  unloose  the  bars  wherewith  pov- 
erty has  bound  his  spirit  up ;  no  Michael  nor  Gabriel 
shall  rend  the  sky  and  bring  a  single  book  to  fill  his 
lean  satchel.  He  must  be  his  own  angel,  must  take 
the  inspiration  God  offers  to  his  genius,  but  which  he 
gives  only  on  condition  of  faithful  work.  If  that 
youth  has  trust  in  God  it  is  not  an  idle  trust. 

The  poor  man  had  fallen  among  thieves.  The  priest 
went  by  on  the  other  side ;  the  Levite  looked  on  him 
and  passed  on ;  and  I  doubt  not  both  of  them,  when 
they  got  home,  remembered  him  in  their  prayers,  and 
hoped  that  God  would  take  care  of  the  poor  man,  and 
quietly  laid  their  lazy  heads  on  their  pillows,  thinking 
that  God's  providence  required  no  human  hand.  But 
the  good  Samaritan  used  God's  means  to  accomplish 
God's  end,  put  him  on  his  own  beast,  bore  him  to  an 
inn,  gave  the  host  his  fee,  and  said,  "  Take  care  of  him, 
and  whatsoever  thou  spendest  more,  when  I  come  again 
I  will  repay  thee."  Which  of  these  three  was  not  only 
neighbor  to  him  that  fell  among  the  thieves,  but  which 
had  trust  in  God?  You  and  I  wish  this  nation  pros- 
perous, peaceful,  happy,  and  rich.  We  trust  in  God 
that  it  will  be  so ;  we  deplore  its  evils,  and  ask  God  to 
remove  them.  God  will  do  no  such  thing.  I  should 
be  sorry  if  He  did.  God  will  not  turn  out  a  bad 
officer  from  his  place.  He  will  not  elect  a  good  man  to 
be  president,  or  judge,  or  sheriff,  or  minister.  He 
leaves  it  for  us.  If  we  want  national  prosperity,  we 
must  learn  to  keep  the  natural  laws  of  God,  be  faithful 
to  the  native  sense  of  right,  not  false  thereto ;  our 
statutes  must  be  just ;  we  must  make  a  political  machine 


348      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

which  shall  secure  to  all  their  natural  rights ;  for  rulers 
we  must  choose  wise  men,  who  reverence  God  and 
keep  His  commandments ;  we  must  follow  our  rulers  as 
far  as  their  commandments  are  true  and  right,  not 
a  step  farther.  What  is  to  become  of  our  trust  in 
God,  if,  when  called  upon,  we  tread  God's  laws  under 
our  feet?  If  we  decide  to  use  God's  means  for  national 
success,  then  it  will  come,  and  we  may  leave  liberty 
a  priceless  inheritance  to  our  children. 

Ecclesiastical  men  have  palsied  the  life  of  mankind, 
have  bidden  us  wait  for  God.  God  waits  for  us,  as 
means  to  establish  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

How  beautiful  is  the  feeling  of  trust  in  God  —  con- 
fidence in  His  purposes,  in  His  character.  But  when  it 
becomes  an  idea  as  well  as  a  sentiment,  and  an  act,  how 
much  more  beautiful  is  it.  It  is  not  the  bud  or  the 
grain,  it  is  the  full  corn  in  the  ear,  the  bread  of  nations. 
The  paper  nautilus  is  a  beautiful  thing,  sailing  the 
waters  where  "  little  breezes  dusk  and  shiver  "  round 
its  pretty  shell,  sinking  to  the  water's  deeper  depths 
when  the  storm  begins  to  rise ;  but  a  great  steamship 
that  takes  two  thousand  men  within  its  oaken  ribs  and 
steers  over  the  Atlantic,  fearless  of  every  storm,  is  a 
different  thing  from  the  nautilus.  That  is  a  trust  in 
God  which  works,  and  is  a  seed  and  a  life. 

I  honor  the  piety  of  William  Law, 

"  Which  nursed  my  childhood,  and  inform'd  my  youth," 

the  piety  of  Madame  Guyon,  and  Fenelon,  and  Bridget, 
and  Theresa ;  I  reverence  them  all.  But  far  more  do  I 
reverence  the  piety  of  Oliver  Cromwell  and  his  trust 
in  God,  which  knew  how  to  make  use  of  human  means 
to  serve  God's  end.  That  was  the  piety  of  our  fathers, 
that  planted  the  vine  that  shelters  our  head  and  feeds 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      349 

our  mouth.  It  was  the  piety  of  Paul,  which  dehvered 
him  out  of  the  jaws  of  the  lion.  It  was  the  piety  of 
Jesus,  which  said,  "  I  am  not  alone,  more  than  a  legion 
of  angels  are  with  mc,"  and  "  Father,  forgive  them, 
for  the}'  know  not  what  they  do." 

DEPENDENCE  UPON  GOD 

Every  man  who  thinks  at  all,  feels  the  need  of  an  as- 
sured support,  something  that  is  positive,  that  is  per- 
manent, that  is  absolute,  to  rely  upon.  By  our  very 
nature  we  must  depend  and  lean.  How  dependent  we 
are ;  not  self-originated,  not  self -sustained,  only  self- 
directed  in  part,  and  in  how  small  a  part  every  one  of 
us  knows ;  for  probably  if  we  could  have  had  our  will 
not  one  of  us  would  have  been  in  this  house  to-day. 
The  great  events  of  our  lives  are  events  which  take 
place  in  spite  of  us,  even  more  than  in  accordance 
with  our  will.  Now,  it  is  a  great  thing  to  know  that 
the  Cause  which  originates,  which  sustains,  and  in  so 
large  a  measure  directs,  is  infinitely  powerful,  wise, 
just,  loving,  and  faithful  to  Himself.  If  I  am  sure 
of  that,  then  I  am  safe ;  I  am  sure  of  the  end  of  all 
my  life,  and  am  sure  that  though  to-morrow  may  turn 
out  just  what  I  wish  it  should  not  turn  out,  the  end 
will  turn  out  vastly  greater  than  I  have  ever  dared  to 
desire ;  I  am  sure  of  the  means  to  the  end,  sure  that 
they  are  adequate  to  bring  it  about. 

There  are  times  when  men  do  not  much  feel  the  need 
of  this  absolute  trust  and  reliance.  In  moments  of  joy 
some  men  never  feel  it.  But  with  many  men,  even  in 
their  periods  of  highest  success,  there  comes  a  dim 
forefeeling  of  the  brittleness  of  their  joy,  and  they 
must  look  through  the  glass  of  their  delight,  and  see 
the  perennial  heaven  beyond  them,  before  they  can  be 


350      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

satisfied  even  with  their  momentary  joj.  With  most 
men,  tlicir  outward  life  is  a  tragedy.  As  I  look  on 
your  faces  from  week  to  week,  and  see  the  emotions 
which  come  out  as  they  are  stirred  by  a  sermon,  I  see 
that  to  almost  every  one  of  you  beyond  the  age  of  girl- 
hood, life  has  been  a  tragedy.  Perhaps  it  is  most  so 
with  the  highest  and  holiest  natures,  for  either  their 
high  powers  lack  development,  or,  gaining  that,  they 
lack  human  sympathy ;  and  in  their  case  that  is  a  ter- 
rible tragedy.  Youth  plays  a  magnificent  and  dreamy 
overture  to  the  great  opera  of  life.  What  a  full 
orchestra  of  passions,  hopes,  imaginations,  loves,  the 
earthly  and  the  celestial !  what  a  chorus  of  promises 
there  is  for  the  great  drama  of  mortal  life !  But 
anon  there  is  disappointment,  sickness,  failure,  and 
defeat ;  the  defeat  of  your  purposes,  sometimes  the 
failure  of  your  principles.  Then  there  is  the  loss 
of  your  friends ;  the  better  part  of  you  taken  away, 
and  you  left,  only  half  of  yourself,  to  pursue  the  jour- 
ney of  your  life  alone. 

"  The  clouds  that  gather  round  the  setting  sun 
Do  take  a  sober  coloring  from  the  eye 
That  hath  kept  watch  o'er  man's  mortality." 

The  overture  of  youth  has  presently  gone  by ;  that  or- 
chestra of  earthly  hopes  and  passions  and  loves  has 
got  stilled ;  passion  has  throbbed  itself  to  silence  and 
sleep ;  hope  halts  a  great  way  this  side  of  the  ful- 
filment it  promised,  and  there  are  grim  realities  that 
meet  us  on  the  stage  of  mortal  life  that  we  never 
dreamed  of  or  desired.  Then  the  consciousness  of 
the  infinity  of  God  is  the  most  priceless  joy  in  the 
heart.  With  that  you  know  that  all  this  change  and 
disappointment  was  foreseen,  was  provided  for,  is  part 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      351 

of  the  heavenly  mechanism  of  life,  that  the  Great 
Director  of  the  world  cast  His  parts  wisely,  knows 
how  it  will  turn  out. 

man's  right  to  god's  providence 

The  old  theology  which  came  from  the  savage  or 
half-civilized  period  of  man's  history,  thought  to  honor 
God  by  teaching  that  He  was  not  love,  only  power,  not 
law,  but  mere  caprice,  and  so  might  consistently  violate 
the  higher  instincts  of  His  own  nature,  or  of  the  crea- 
tures He  had  made,  and  doom  man  to  eternal  woe.  It 
taught  that  God  owed  no  duty  to  the  world,  that  He 
was  not  amenable  to  man,  to  His  own  justice,  or  His 
own  love,  and  man  had  no  right  to  any  thing  from 
God,  All  was  a  favor,  something  thrust  in  by  His 
grace,  not  given  on  man's  claim. 

But  it  is  not  so.  It  is  irreverent  to  think  that  God 
is  this  mere  arbitrary  will,  this  loveless,  lawless  force. 
I  have  a  right  to  eternal  salvation,  on  condition  that  I 
do  the  duties  which  my  nature  requires  and  makes  pos- 
sible for  me  to  do.  You  all  of  you  feel  so,  in  spite  of 
that  old  theology  which  fed  us  in  our  babyhood,  and 
still  colors  all  our  bones  with  its  own  ghastly  com- 
plexion. What  meanness  it  is  on  our  part  to  think 
that  God  made  man  so  badly  at  the  first,  from  a  motive 
so  selfish,  and  put  salvation  and  ultimate  welfare  out 
of  our  reach,  hard  to  be  won,  and  doled  out  only  as  an 
alms  to  a  miserable  few ;  that  he  demands  only  duty 
of  man,  and  allows  no  claim  to  right.  Suppose  it 
should  happen  as  the  popular  theology  represents,  and 
at  the  last  day  the  worst  of  all  mankind  should  be 
brought  up  for  damnation,  and  stood  at  the  head  of 
the  human  column  of  wicked  men,  millions  of  millions 
strong,  with  an  eternity  of  torment  before  him,  and 


352   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

the  Judge  should  say,  "  Wickedest  of  sinners,  what 
hast  thou  to  offer  as  a  reason  why  sentence  of  eternal 
woe  should  not  be  pronounced  against  you?  "  And 
the  meanest  and  wickedest  of  men  might  rise  up  and 
say,  "  Why  hast  Thou  made  me  thus?  At  the  begin- 
ning, before  I  was  formed,  before  the  earth  was  created, 
Thou  knewest  every  force  that  would  be  about  me  or 
within  me,  and  here  on  the  threshold  of  damnation  do  I 
upbraid  Thee,  and  demand  salvation."  The  man  would 
be  right.  Oh,  my  friends,  it  is  the  worst  of  blasphemy 
against  the  Almighty  God  which  our  theology  teaches, 
in  attributing  to  Him  these  ghastly  attributes.  Instead 
of  the  All-beneficent,  whose  presence  is  fragrant  in 
these  flowers,  and  is  beautiful  above  the  clouds  of 
heaven,  it  has  given  us  a  great  ugly  Devil,  all  mind 
to  think,  all  power  to  smite,  but  no  heart  to  love,  no 
conscience  to  decree  justice,  no  womanly  arm  to  take 
the  universe  to  himself,  and  warm  it  with  his  breath, 
and  bless  it  with  his  never-ending  love.  Let  us  tread 
such  a  theology  under  our  feet,  and  out  of  the  heart 
God  has  given  us  let  the  fragrant  piety  of  nature 
exhale  as  that  of  these  flowers  towards  heaven.  Doubt 
not  that  the  natural,  inalienable  right  which  we  claim 
of  God  will  be  allowed.  Doubt  not  that  the  divine  duty 
will  be  abundantly  discharged.  What  He  requires  of 
us  is  the  performance  of  our  duty,  as  it  seems  plain  to 
us.  If  we  hold  up  our  little  cup,  be  sure  the  Almighty 
will  rain  the  beneficence  of  His  heaven  down  into  it. 
If  we  try  to  think,  we  shall  have  wisdom ;  if  we  feel 
for  justice,  it  will  come  to  us;  if  our  hearts  yearn  for 
love,  benevolence  will  come  in ;  and  when  we  seek  trust 
and  faith  in  our  Father,  be  sure  He  lets  Himself  down 
into  us,  as  dew  comes  to  meadows  newly  mown,  or 
snows  in  winter  on  the  mountains  of  our  northern  land. 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      353 

There  need  be  no  fear  in  this  quarter.  Depend  upon 
it,  the  Judge  of  the  earth  will  do  right,  and  made  us 
so  that  while  we  are  doing  what  we  think  to  be  our 
duty,  that  will  lead  us  to  boundless  welfare  here  and 
infinite  heaven  hereafter.  You  and  I  do  not  know 
the  details  of  His  purpose,  and  still  less  do  we  know 
the  special  means  thereunto,  or  the  special  function 
our  means  shall  accomplish ;  but  still  we  instinctively 
ti-ust  and  look  up  with  joy.  The  plan  is  His,  ours 
is  the  daily  work,  with  the  details  which  conscience 
sets  before  us.  This  is  the  first  of  all  rights,  our 
inalienable  right  to  the  infinite  providence  of  the 
perfect  God. 

GOD  CARES  FOR  EACH  AND  ALL 

A  great  general  proposes  for  himself  a  certain  ob- 
ject. He  will  secure  that  object,  and  cares  very  little 
for  the  character  of  the  means  he  employs,  excepting 
so  far  as  they  are  instrumental  for  achieving  his  end. 
Napoleon  desires  to  carry  a  certain  castle,  to  capture 
a  fortress.  "  It  will  cost  ten  thousand  men,"  he  is  told. 
"  I  will  give  ten  thousand  men,"  is  the  reply.  He 
cares  not.  But  the  Infinite  God  must  care  for  the 
means  as  well  as  the  end;  for  each  individual  man  is 
an  end  of  God's  creation  and  God's  providence,  as  well 
as  the  whole  human  race;  and  though  the  general  in 
his  finite  power  and  grasp  will  sacrifice  the  individual 
for  the  sake  of  the  whole,  the  great  God  can  never  do 
so.  If  He  do,  it  must  be  from  lack  of  power,  wisdom, 
justice,  love,  or  holiness,  which  the  Infinite  God  cannot 
lack.  Therefore  the  individual  must  be  as  carefully 
provided  for  as  the  whole  mass  of  men.  This  follows 
from  the  infinite  perfection  of  God. 

XI— 23 


354      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

FAITH  IN  GOD 

No  doubt  there  is  an  element  in  the  rehgion  of  each 
man  which  is  common  to  all  men.  In  times  of  domestic 
trouble,  the  family  of  conflicting  sectarians  —  Trinita- 
rians, Unitarians,  Baptists,  Methodists,  Universalists 
—  all  gather  about  the  grave  of  some  venerable  father 
or  mother,  and  their  else  discordant  hearts  are  har- 
monized by  the  same  religious  word,  which  is  wide  as 
human  life,  and  deep  as  human  need,  and  high  as 
human  aspirations  are  when  their  fair  and  far-ascend- 
ing flight  embraces,  purifies,  inspires,  and  blesses  all. 
So  in  times  of  national  trouble,  when  the  great  ark 
which  contains  the  tables  of  political  liberty  is  brought 
in  peril  of  the  Philistines,  Catholic  and  Protestant, 
Greek  and  Jew,  true  believer  and  disbeliever  —  all 
wheel  into  line  and  form  an  army  where  their  discord- 
ant feet  keep  time  to  the  same  martial  notes,  and  their 
conflicting  souls  blend  with  one  accord  in  the  deep 
feeling  of  religious  patriotism  common  to  all.  If  the 
Catholic  Church  in  America  should  become  as  threat- 
ening as  it  is  in  Italy,  France,  and  Spain,  the  Protes- 
tant sects  in  the  United  States  would  find  a  national 
hymn  we  all  could  sing,  and  the  great  psalm  of  self- 
defensive  Protestantism  would  unite  Trinitarian  and 
Unitarian,  Salvationist  and  Damnationist,  the  wor- 
shiper of  the  Bible  and  the  follower  of  human  nature. 
But  we  do  not  often  go  down  to  this  deep,  wide  ocean 
which  cradles  the  great  continents  of  humanity ;  rather 
do  we  dabble  in  those  shallow  waters  which  wash  sec- 
tarian and  partial  shores ;  and  as  unity  of  faith  in 
God  is  the  most  centripetal  of  all  attractions,  so  dis- 
cordant faith  in  God  drives  men  asunder  with  most 
destructive  force.     Light  and  darkness  can  have  com- 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      355 

munion ;  they  mingle  every  morning  and  night,  and  put 
a  twihght  circle  of  loveliness  round  either  horizon,  so 
that,  as  the  world  goes  whirling  through  space,  there  is 
a  rainbow  ring  of  beauty  which  surrounds  it  from 
north  to  south,  wherein  this  great  world  continually 
rolls.  There  may  be  communion  of  light  and  dark- 
ness ;  spring  and  autumn  are  the  mingling  of  heat 
and  cold ;  but  there  is  no  communion  between  faith  in 
the  God  of  Love  and  faith  in  the  Devil  of  Hate ; 
these  two  are  stark  opposite.  So  I  say  that  as  unity 
of  faith  is  the  strongest  of  centripetal  forces,  so  dis- 
cordance thereof  is  the  strongest  of  repellent  things. 

LOVE  TO  GOD 

I  love  God  as  I  can  no  other  being, —  father,  mother, 
wife,  child ;  my  love  to  Him  transcends  them  all.  It  is 
reverence,  it  is  gratitude,  it  is  adoration,  it  is  trust ;  my 
will  melts  into  His,  and  the  two  are  one.  All  selfishness 
is  gone,  and  in  the  life  of  God  within  my  consciousness 
do  I  find  my  own  higher  life.  We  have  our  special 
times  for  feeling  this  love,  our  several  ways  of  express- 
ing it ;  and  unhappy  is  that  man  or  woman  who  tattles 
thereof,  foaming  at  the  mouth  in  some  noisy  confer- 
ence, as  in  the  village  dog  barks  to  dog ;  but  blessed  is 
he  whose  noiseless  piety  sweetens  his  daily  toil,  filling 
the  house  with  the  odor  of  that  ointment ;  thrice  blessed 
when  it  comes  out  in  the  character  of  the  men  whose 
holy  lives,  glittering  with  good  deeds,  adorn  the  land 
they  also  sen^e  and  heal  and  bless. 

HARMONY  BETWEEN  MAN  AND  GOD 

What  an  immense  variety  there  is  in  forms  of  reli- 
gion !  What  odds  between  the  sensuous  glitter,  the 
splendid  costliness  of  the  Catholic  service  in  St.  Pe- 


856      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  JVIAN 

ter's  Cathedral  at  Rome  to-day,  and  the  bare  devotion 
of  the  Quakers  in  some  Friends'  meeting-house  at 
New  Bedford  or  Philadelphia !  What  a  difference  be- 
tween the  barbarous  idolatry  of  the  New  Zealanders, 
sacrificing  a  man  before  a  clay  image,  and  the  Trin- 
itarians of  Boston  consulting  together,  and  with  great 
self-denial  agreeing  to  send  some  stalwart-minded  and 
earnest  man  as  missionary  to  convert  those  New  Zea- 
landers from  their  savage  idolatry !  The  odds  between 
the  flora  of  New  Holland  and  New  Hampshire  is 
smaller  than  between  their  forms  of  religion.  The  ele- 
phant of  the  tropics  differs  from  the  sea-bear  of  the 
Aleutian  Islands  less  than  the  religion  of  the  African 
elephant-hunter  differs  from  that  of  the  Russian 
hunter  who  captures  the  sea-bear  at  Alaska.  Yet 
each  worshiper  is  sincere,  and  these  different  forms  of 
religion  have  grown  out  from  the  ground  of  humanity 
as  the  flora  and  fauna  of  the  tropics  and  arctics  come 
from  the  circumstances  thereof. 

How  fleeting  are  the  forms  of  religion !  What  a 
complex  mythology  had  the  Greeks  two  thousand  years 
ago !  Now  it  is  all  gone.  God  and  goddess,  nymph 
and  muse,  have  only  left  their  handsome  footsteps  in 
the  marble  of  Greece,  or  their  breath  in  her  literature. 
Nobody  prays  now  to  Pan ;  no  sacrifice  is  offered  to 
Pallas  Athene.  Olympian  Zeus  has  but  his  monument 
in  the  gravej^ard  of  buried  deities,  not  a  worshiper 
in  all  the  world.  His  last  devotee  was  an  English 
scholar  who  wanted  to  sacrifice  to  him  a  bull  in  a 
parlor  in  London,  and  he  was  carried  to  Bedlam.  All 
these  deities  are  fossils  now ;  none  thinks  them  live 
gods.  The  terrible  deities  which  Roman  Lucretius 
fought  against  with  his  sword  of  verse  have  fled, 
routed  before  him,  driven  beyond  the  flaming  walls  of 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      357 

the  universe  whereof  he  sang;  not  a  god  of  them  is 
left.  Curious  is  it  to  see  to-day  in  Rome  itself  the 
temples  of  Ceres,  Jupiter,  Mars,  Minerva,  and  think 
of  the  gods  whom  humanity  has  banished  thence,  the 
stone  outlasting  the  deity.  You  look  on  the  statues 
there,  corpses  of  gods  which  once  millions  of  men  wor- 
shiped; now  there  is  none  so  poor  to  do  them  rever- 
ence. A  new  crop  of  religions  has  come  up  on  earth 
and  overgrown  the  old,  and  crowded  them  out.  Within 
seventeen  hundred  years  Christianity  has  driven  away 
the  old  religion  from  three-quarters  of  Europe.  The 
Christ  of  the  Church  has  put  all  the  Celtic,  Slavonic, 
and  Teutonic  deities  to  open  shame.  But  that  form  of 
Christianity  in  which  our  fathers  worshiped  in  the 
German  woods  has  itself  been  driven  off  by  another 
form  of  Christianity  which  differs  from  its  predecessor 
not  less  widely  than  that  differed  from  the  religion 
which  it  displaced.  Once  Teutonic  Arminius  met  Ro- 
man Varus  with  his  legions,  and  slew  them  on  the 
old  red  ground  of  North  Germany.  Fifteen  hundred 
years  later,  Teutonic  Luther  met  Roman  Leo  with  his 
legions  of  priests,  and  put  them  down  on  that  same 
old  red  ground  of  North  Germany.  The  difference 
between  the  Teutonic  heathenism  of  the  Germans  in 
the  eighth  century  and  the  Roman  Christianity  which 
displaced  it,  is  far  less  than  the  odds  between  that 
Roman  Christianity  and  the  religion  which  brings  us 
together  to-day. 

The  name  Religion  includes  the  pious  conscious- 
ness of  the  six  great  world-sects, —  Brahmins,  Hebrews, 
Romans,  Buddhists,  Christians,  and  Mahometans,  with 
all  the  ruder  forms.  The  term  Christianity  embraces 
a  great  variety  of  ideas  and  forms,  quite  hostile  to 
each  other. 


358   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

Look  deep,  and  you  find  something  permanent  in  all 
these  fleeting  forms  of  religion,  an  element  of  unity 
common  to  each,  amid  diversities  so  great.  All  the  re- 
ligions that  are  or  have  been  unite  in  this:  They  aim 
to  establish  harmony  between  God  and  man.  That 
conscious  desire  is  the  point  common  to  all.  In  all  the 
ruder  forms  men  seek  this  harmony  by  an  attempt  to 
alter  the  disposition  of  God,  to  make  him  conform  to 
us,  not  us  to  him.  Such  is  the  aim  of  all  sacrifice, — 
to  affect  the  Deity,  not  the  worshiper.  All  the  Old 
Testament  sacrifices  and  ritual  observances  are  to 
please  God.  Circumcision  did  not  increase  the  piety 
or  morality  of  parent  or  child ;  it  was  only  designed 
to  alter  the  disposition  of  Jehovah.  This  rude  notion 
still  prevails  in  Christian  churches.  There  you  will 
be  told  that  all  the  sermons  are  for  God's  sake.  The 
Catholic  priest  tells  us  we  must  please  God.  The 
Protestant  minister  commonly  thinks  that  by  his 
prayer  he  shall  influence  the  Eternal  God.  He  does 
not  seek  to  lift  up  himself  and  such  as  pray  with  him, 
but  only  to  alter  the  mind  of  God ;  not  to  make  men 
divine,  but  God  human.  Nay,  for  seventeen  hundred 
years  this  has  been  the  chief  doctrine  of  all  Christen- 
dom, that  Jesus  came  on  earth,  lived  and  died,  not  to 
teach  humanity  to  men,  but  to  persuade  God  to  mercy ; 
not  to  make  us  love  each  other,  or  to  love  God,  but  to 
make  God  love  us ;  for  this  surely  has  been  the  doctrine 
of  the  Christian  Church,  that  his  death,  as  an  atone- 
ment, was  the  great  thing,  not  his  life  of  virtue  and 
his  words  of  such  strength  and  beauty. 

But  when  we  get  enlightened,  we  find  that  the  way  to 
attain  harmony  with  God  is  by  conforming  ourselves  to 
Him,  not  by  seeking  to  conform  Him  to  us.  By  and 
by  we  find  that  there  is  a  God  of  infinite  perfection  in 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      359 

power,  wisdom,  justice,  love,  and  holiness;  and  then  we 
find  that  God  needs  no  instruction,  for  He  is  all-wise, 
and  before  the  beginning  of  creation  He  knew  all 
which  would  happen  in  the  history  of  the  human  race, 
in  the  life  of  you  and  me,  every  act,  every  word,  every 
feeling,  and  provided  for  it  beforehand.  He  needs  no 
appeasing  to  alter  His  affection,  for  He  is  all  love,  and 
has  an  infinite  desire  to  confer  the  highest  possible  of 
conceivable  blessing  on  the  whole  human  race,  and  on 
each  individual  thereof. 

When  we  come  to  this  conclusion,  we  take  pains  to 
bring  ourselves  into  harmony  with  God.  All  sacrifice 
disappears,  all  mutilation  of  the  flesh  or  spirit,  all 
ceremonies  which  do  not  grow  out  of  the  natural  wants 
of  mankind. 

Then  comes  the  worship  of  God  in  spirit  and  in 
truth,  not  in  one  place  only,  but  in  all ;  not  on  the  Sab- 
bath or  new-moon  days,  but  all  time  is  holy,  all  life  is 
religion,  a  continual  attempt  at  conformity  with  God. 
It  is  only  by  this  worship  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  in  all 
time  and  in  every  place,  that  men  establish  a  real  har- 
mony between  man  and  God,  and  we  become  at  one 
with  Him.  It  is  only  by  this  one  religion  that  the 
grand  aim  of  all  religion  can  be  achieved.  No  words, 
no  sacrifice,  no  ceremony,  no  belief,  can  instruct,  ap- 
pease, or  persuade  the  Infinite  God  in  the  very  least 
degree.     Nothing  can  alter  Him. 

In  all  civilized  religion,  there  are  finger-posts  point- 
ing to  this  desire  of  all  nations, —  complete  rest  in  God, 
the  perfect  love  which  casts  out  fear.  What  longings 
for  it  are  there  in  the  Old  Testament  and  Apocrypha ! 
How  many  a  noble  soul  felt  the  poverty  of  ceremonial 
religion,  and  broke  out  into  grand  lyrics  and  psalms ! 
"  Bring;  no  more  vain  oblations.     Incense  is  an  abom- 


360   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

ination  unto  me !  " —  is  the  protest  which  Isaiah  puts 
into  the  mouth  of  God.  The  prayer  of  David  is, 
"  Create  in  me  a  clean  heart,  O  God,  and  renew  a  right 
spirit  within  me ! "  "  The  sacrifices  of  God  are  a 
broken  spirit.  A  broken  and  a  contrite  heart,  O  God, 
thou  wilt  not  despise !  "  It  was  for  this  that  believers 
built  their  temples  and  pyramids,  and  hewed  out  their 
statues, —  ugly  sphinxes  in  Egypt,  handsome  deities 
in  artistic  Greece. 

The  atheist  who  smote  the  people's  religion  of  fear, 
sought  the  same  thing.  He  also  longed  for  rest  to  his 
soul.  In  our  own  day  a  religious  poet  has  mostly 
summed  the  matter  up, —  the  effort  of  mankind  to  this 
end  before  Jesus,  and  the  result  of  peace  which  comes 
from  the  worship  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 

"  Tranquillity !  —  the  sovereign  aim  wert  thou 

In  heathen  schools  of  philosophic  lore; 

Heart-stricken  by  stern  destiny  of  yore. 
The  Tragic  Muse  thee  served  with  thoughtful  vow; 
And  what  of  hope  Elysium  could  allow 

Was  fondly  seized  by  Sculpture,  to  restore 

Peace  to  the  mourner.     But  when  He  who  wore 
The  crown  of  thorns  around  his  bleeding  brow 
Warm'd  our  sad  being  with  celestial  light, 

Then  Arts,  which  still  had  drawn  a  softening  grace 
From  shadowy  fountains  of  the  Infinite, 

Communed  with  that  Idea,  face  to  face; 
And  move  around  it  now  as  planets  run, 
Each  in  its  orbit  round  the  central  sun." 

The  common  forms  of  religion  are  not  this  worship 
in  spirit  and  in  truth,  of  which  I  speak.  What  de- 
Hght  there  is,  however,  in  this  high  worship  which  rests 
on  the  consciousness  of  the  infinite  perfection  of  God. 
I  am  sure  of  Him,  sure  of  His  nature.  His  purpose,  His 
motive,  its  end  and  means,  I  seek  to  conform  my  finite 
being  to  His  infinite  purpose,  and  so  make  a  harmony 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      361 

between  Him  and  me.  I  catch  the  tune  from  God,  as 
it  sounds  in  the  innermost  of  my  consciousness,  and 
then  I  accord  all  the  strings  of  my  harp  thereto,  and 
sing  the  songs  of  Zion,  counting  no  land  strange  to 
such  music.  Nowhere,  not  even  by  the  waters  of  Baby- 
lon, shall  I  hang  my  harp  on  the  willow,  and  sit  down 
and  weep  in  despair. 

All  forms  of  religion  have  some  truth  in  them,  else 
they  had  not  been ;  even  as  all  kinds  of  food  have  some 
little  nutriment,  and  even  for  that  men  hold  them  fast. 
But  this  absolute  religion,  this  worship  in  spirit  and  in 
truth,  at  all  times,  in  every  place,  and  with  each  faculty, 
—  that  is  the  only  form  of  religion  which  has  nothing 
to  hinder  the  most  complete  and  perfect  human  joy. 
Intellectually  it  is  delight  in  the  Mind  of  the  universe, 
the  Infinite  Wisdom  whence  all  truth  and  use  and 
beauty  flow.  Morally  it  is  joy  in  the  Conscience  of 
the  world,  whence  comes  the  justice  that  sets  metes  and 
bounds  to  all,  and  is  the  world's  great  universal  Will, 
overriding  all  individual  human  caprice.  Affection- 
ately it  is  delight  in  the  Heart  of  the  universe,  whence 
comes  this  great  motherly  love  which  fills  the  heavens 
with  starry  fire,  and  clothes  the  earth  with  such  mag- 
nificence, and  robes  the  lily  in  fairer  raiment  than  im- 
perial Solomon  ever  put  on,  and  pours  its  tender  mercy 
forth  till  the  earth  is  filled  with  the  odor  of  that  oint- 
ment. Religiously  it  is  joy  in  the  Infinite  God,  Father 
to  Moses,  Jesus,  to  you  and  me,  to  the  most  op- 
pressed slave  that  groans  on  a  plantation  in  Alabama 
or  Carolina ;  ay,  to  that  slave's  cruellest  master,  to 
the  worst  of  murderers  or  kidnappers  in  our  Northern 
States. 

In  the  sorrows  of  life,  it  is  hope,  resignation,  and 
absolute   trust;   ay,  it   is   certain   knowledge  that  the 


362   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

discipline  of  grief  and  disappointment  leads  to  delight 
in  our  eternal  destination,  an  eternal  weight  of  glory 
which  nothing  else  can  work  out  for  us. 

The  old  forms  of  religion  are  passing  away,  and 
will  be  forgotten.  They  were  the  scaffolding  whereon 
men  went  up  and  down,  or  the  derricks  wherewith  they 
lifted  up  the  precious  stones  they  had  quarried  out, 
wherewith  they  were  building  up  the  great  temple  of 
the  perfect  religion,  the  worship  of  God  in  spirit  and 
in  truth.  That  springs  from  the  nature  of  man,  and 
accords  with  the  nature  of  God,  and  shall  never  pass 
away. 

THE  FALSE  IDEA  OF  INSPIRATION 

The  old  ecclesiastical  idea  of  inspiration,  although 
not  so  powerful  as  once,  still  retards  the  progress  of 
mankind.  It  is  an  exceeding  great  wrong  to  begin 
with,  for  it  makes  us  worship  the  Bible  as  a  master, 
not  use  it  as  a  servant  to  help.  We  are  told  that  it 
contains  the  writings  of  men  miraculously  inspired ; 
that  it  is  the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the 
truth,  and  we  must  accept  its  doctrines,  not  because 
they  are  true,  but  because  they  are  Biblical.  The 
Bible  is  not  to  be  merely  a  quickener  of  men's  thought, 
it  is  to  be  a  substitute  for  thought ;  not  a  staff  that  we 
are  to  walk  by,  but  to  be  legs  for  us  to  walk  upon. 
We  can  no  longer  come  to  the  great  fountain  whence 
Esaias  and  Jesus  drew  their  living  water;  they  drew 
the  well  dry  and  put  the  living  water  into  Biblical 
troughs,  whence  we  are  to  drink  as  we  see  fit. 

Now,  looked  on  in  this  way,  we  fail  to  see  the  real 
value  of  the  Bible  itself.  There  are  great  truths  in 
it,  and  in  this  way  we  may  get  those  truths,  and  that 
is   a  great  thing.     But  besides  this,  there  are  great 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      363 

characters  in  the  Bible;  and  the  character  of  a  great 
man  is  worth  much  more  than  the  special  truths  that 
he  teaches.  The  philosophical  conclusions  of  Aristotle, 
Socrates,  Descartes,  Kant,  and  Hegel,  are  not  worth 
so  much  as  the  character  of  these  men,  the  intellectual 
manhood  which  brought  them  to  their  conclusions. 
If  Aristotle  and  Socrates  lived  now,  they  would  not 
stop  in  the  nineteenth  century  after  Christ  where  they 
stopped  in  the  fourth  century  before  him.  To  take 
the  prophet's  mantle  is  a  very  good  thing,  no  doubt, 
but  to  take  the  prophet's  spirit  is  very  different,  and 
a  great  deal  greater  and  better,  and  more.  Now,  if 
you  take  the  Bible  as  a  miraculous  authority,  the  last 
standard  of  human  appeal,  then,  though  you  get  the 
truths  that  are  taught  in  it,  you  do  not  get  the  char- 
acter of  the  men  who  wrote  it.  The  words  of  Moses, 
Esaias,  Paul,  Jesus,  represent  what  these  men  came 
to  in  their  day,  not  what  the  same  men  would  come  to 
in  our  time,  starting  from  the  higher  platform  with 
the  greater  impetus  and  momentum  to  start  with.  The 
character  which  carried  Jesus  so  far  before  his  age 
is  more  than  the  special  truths  which  he  taught.  What 
grand  words  in  his  beatitudes,  in  his  parables  often- 
times, in  that  last  brave  prayer  of  his,  "  Father,  forgive 
them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do."  Do  you  think 
that  a  man  who  went  so  high  as  that  eighteen  hundred 
years  ago,  would  stop  where  he  did  if  he  lived  in  these 
days.f*  Do  you  think  that  Jesus,  living  at  this  day, 
would  believe  in  the  devil,  in  eternal  torment,  and  speak 
about  the  wrath  of  God,  and  expect  the  world  to  end 
during  the  life  of  his  immediate  followers.''  That  he 
should  have  believed  so  then  was  perfectly  natural,  and 
we  should  not  judge  him  as  if  he  acted  in  the  light  of 
our  times ;  nor  should  we  put  ourselves  into  the  dark- 


364   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

ness  of  his  times.  To  do  this  is  not  to  honor  Jesus, 
I  think  it  is  to  dishonor  him.  Then,  too,  if  you  think 
his  character  was  wholly  made  for  him,  and  not  by 
him,  was  the  work  of  God  and  not  of  the  man,  wrought 
out  with  no  struggle,  no  tears,  no  fear,  no  mistakes, 
no  sin,  if  his  noble  words  were  only  miraculously  in- 
spired,—  then  Jesus  is  nothing  of  himself ;  he  is  the 
lightning-rod,  not  the  power  which  lightens  and  thun- 
ders ;  he  is  not  a  human  fountain,  only  a  cup  full  of 
the  divine  water,  and  God  made  the  cup  and  filled  it, 
and  Jesus  has  no  merit  in  being  such  a  cup,  none  in 
being  so  filled.  Some  materialists  of  our  day  teach 
that  a  man's  character  is  made  for  him,  not  by  him, 
and  he  is  the  instrument  of  human  and  material  circum- 
stances. If  you  apply  that  doctrine  to  the  manliest 
man,  and  say  that  Jesus  had  nothing  to  do  with  mak- 
ing his  character,  it  is  the  worst  application  of  this 
materialistic  theory  which  we  all  denounce.  With  the 
common  view  of  inspiration,  the  highest  man  becomes 
only  a  poor  puppet  on  the  world's  great  stage,  and 
moves  just  as  God  pulls  the  strings.  Then  the  noble 
souls  of  the  Bible  are  all  dwarfed,  and  degenerate  into 
little  mean  machines,  and  the  goodly  host  of  prophets, 
the  glorious  company  of  apostles,  and  the  noble  army 
of  martyrs,  are  only  wheels  of  the  mill,  and  on  the  irre- 
sistible crank  thereof  the  almighty  hand  of  God  is  laid, 
and  turns  it  round,  and  the  hammer  rises  and  falls  just 
as  He  wills,  and  no  more.  What  comfort  is  it  to  me 
to  know  that  Jesus  was  faithful,  if  I  know  that  God 
held  him  up  so  that  he  could  not  fall,  when  I  am  to  be 
tempted,  and  there  is  no  miraculous  help  for  me?  Of 
what  value  is  his  example  then.?  I  wish  to  be  wise, 
and  men  tell  me  that  God  shot  down  wisdom  into  Jesus, 
as  he  will  not  into  me,  and  what  comfort  to  me  is  that.'' 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      365 

Then,  too,  this  notion  turns  the  world  into  a  base 
juggle.  How  mean  it  looks  with  no  natural  laws,  no 
constant  mode  of  operation !  What  a  world,  where  a 
man's  word  stops  the  sun  for  twenty-four  hours,  that 
a  Hebrew  soldier  may  slay  his  antagonists,  who  are 
not  worse  than  himself!  Look  around  at  the  world 
of  nature  as  it  is  to-day, —  every  apple-tree  on  the  cold 
hills  of  Massachusetts  fragrant  with  blossoms !  Look 
at  the  wheat  hid  under  the  snow  all  winter  long,  now 
through  all  the  Northern  States  growing  bread  to  feed 
not  only  industrious  America,  but  belligerent  Europe 
also !  Look  at  the  spring  grains  which,  with  boun- 
teous hand,  the  farmer  but  a  week  ago  scattered  over 
the  soil,  which  his  oxen  had  furrowed  before  him !  See 
the  no-ble  Indian  corn  just  waiting  to  burst  out  of  the 
earth,  and  presently  it  will  drink  in  God's  light  from 
above,  and  God's  moisture  from  beneath,  and  get  the 
solid  substance  of  the  ground  wherewith  to  build  up 
its  exogenous  stalk !  And  then  look  on  the  world  of 
miracles  as  it  exists  in  theology,  and  how  grand  is  the 
world  of  nature,  and  how  mean  and  contemptible  is 
the  world  of  magic  which  theology  tells  us  of!  Now 
scientific  men  do  not  find  magic  anywhere ;  but  every- 
where they  see  law,  everywhere  order,  everywhere 
exactness.  They  do  not  find  any  miraculous  inspira- 
tion. Newton  learns  mathematics  b}'  mathematical 
thought,  and  Kant  explores  the  more  wonderful  celes- 
tial mechanics  of  the  human  mind  by  hard  toil.  It  is 
by  labor,  sweat,  and  watching,  that  men  of  science 
achieve  their  wonderful  results.  But  in  religious  mat- 
ters it  is  said  men  get  religious  inspiration  with  no 
thought  at  all.  And  so  to  many  men  of  science  the 
whole  business  of  religion  is  an  imposture,  and  they 
turn  off  from  it  with  scorn  and  loathing.     Who  is  to 


366      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

be  blamed  for  this?  In  the  name  of  God,  men  have 
taught  what  the  science  of  the  human  mind  must  needs 
reject,  and  do  you  wonder  that  the  most  religious 
men  of  science  at  this  day  are  religious  without  a  God? 
They  cannot  resist  the  religious  instinct  within  them, 
and  they  are  religious  without  a  God.  They  have  got 
a  here,  but  no  hereafter ;  an  earth,  but  no  heaven. 

This  notion  of  miraculous  inspiration  keeps  us  from 
a  knowledge  of  the  great  powers  of  human  nature.  It 
was  once  natural  that  men  in  a  rude  stage  should  have 
thought  the  best  thoughts  that  came  to  them  were  shot 
down  like  lightning  from  on  high,  that  they  had  noth- 
ing to  do  with  it.  But  now  we  need  not  stop  there. 
We  make  fools  of  ourselves  by  yielding  our  intellect 
to  some  priest,  and  stopping  our  reason  because  a  man 
quotes,  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord."  These  great  truths 
in  the  Bible  did  not  come  by  miracle,  but  by  labor, 
and  watching,  and  prayer,  and  tears.  The  parables 
of  Jesus  did  not  come  like  lightning;  they  came  from 
the  toil  and  prayer  and  daily  endeavor  of  that  manliest 
and  noblest  man. 

"  Not  from  a  vain  or  shallow  thought 
His  awful  Jove  young  Phidias  brought; 
Out  from  the  heart  of  nature  rolled 
The  burdens  of  the  Bible  old; 
The  litanies  of  nations  came, 
Like  the  volcano's  tongue  of  flame. 
Up  from  the  burning  core  below, — 
The  canticles  of  love  and  woe." 

This  is  the  way  in  which  inspiration  comes. 

THE  TRUE  IDEA  OF  INSPIRATION 

How  can  the  finite  mind  communicate  with  the  In- 
finite Mind,  and  receive  inspiration  from  God? 

We  get  the  material  power  which  we  covet,  not  by 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      367 

entreating  God  to  bestow  it  upon  us,  but  bj  learning 
the  mode  of  operation  of  the  material  forces  of  the 
world.  We  take  what  we  can  manage  for  our  special 
purposes,  and  slowly  learn  to  use  this  power,  and 
thereby  get  communications  of  material  force  from 
God,  and  share  His  power  over  the  world  of  matter. 
It  is  small  things  that  we  take  first,  next  greater,  and 
at  length,  some  thirty  thousand  years  after  creation, 
the  philosophical  mechanic  makes  the  waters  carry  his 
boat  or  his  great  ship.  The  elastic  element  reacts  on 
the  oars  under  his  hand,  and  his  little  shallop  glides 
smoothly  along,  or  the  wind  fills  his  sails,  and  three 
hundred  and  forty-six  miles  in  a  day  his  ship  traverses 
the  sea.  The  same  wind  turns  his  mill  at  home.  The 
river  in  its  ascent  is  an  inclined  plane  that  reaches  all 
the  way  from  New  Orleans  to  the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony, 
and  steam  puts  his  ship  up  its  slanting  side,  or  lifts 
the  cargo  a  thousand  feet  into  the  sky.  In  its  descent 
the  same  river  is  another  material  force  that  will  grind 
his  corn,  forge  his  iron,  spin  and  weave  for  him.  The 
gravitation  of  the  earth  pulls  all  things  to  its  center, 
with  swiftly  accelerated  speed.  It  draws  down  the 
sand  through  his  hour-glass,  or  keeps  yonder  pendulum 
in  its  constant  oscillating  swing,  all  day  long,  all  night 
through ;  the  earth's  gravitation  keeps  time  for  little, 
feeble  man.  The  earth  and  water  smite  with  his  tilt- 
hammer,  and  shape  for  him  the  stubborn  iron,  softened 
by  fire,  into  chains,  anchors,  axes,  knives,  and  watch- 
springs,  shaping  it  as  he  will.  Fire  carries  him  on 
land  or  sea, —  his  forgeman  to  stand,  his  porter  to 
travel.  He  also  makes  the  clouds  his  chariot,  and  walks 
on  the  wings  of  the  wind.  He  controls  the  lightning, 
and  makes  the  winds  his  angels,  and  the  flames  of  fire 
his   ministers.     Thus   man,   who   aspires   to   share  the 


368   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

material  power  of  God,  gets  his  portion  of  it,  and  be- 
comes a  partner  with  Him  in  the  world,  and  so  the  might 
of  God  is  imputed  to  man,  and  he  is  inspired  with 
power.  He  gets  it  by  normal  work,  and  the  amount 
he  receives  is  in  proportion  to  his  original  ability,  to 
the  quantity  and  quality  of  voluntary  use  made  thereof. 
Aspiration  alone  is  not  enough.  Aspiration  with  nor- 
mal work,  of  head  and  hand,  secures  this  communion 
with  God.  Man  puts  his  thinking  hand  into  the 
treasure  chest  of  God's  material  power,  and  takes  just 
what  he  has  skill  to  use.  By  this  process  he  becomes 
inspired  with  the  material  power  which  God  put  into 
the  universe.  Still  he  does  not  take  it  all.  It  stretches 
away  before  him  and  above  him,  vast  treasures  of 
power  not  yet  made  use  of.  There  is  always  this  re- 
served power,  which  man  sees  but  cannot  master,  and 
beyond  that  yet  other  power,  not  mastered  and  not  seen. 
Ever  mankind  goes  on,  ever  aspiring  for  more,  ever 
working  for  more,  ever  inspired  with  more.  There  is 
no  other  way  for  man  to  get  the  communication  of 
this  material  force.  It  is  on  these  inevitable  conditions 
that  God  grants  it  to  man. 

Now  it  is  in  just  the  same  way  that  we  satisfy  the 
next  and  higher  aspiration,  for  the  intellectual  power 
that  we  covet  so  much.  We  think,  or  try  to  think,  and 
so  develop  the  mind  in  all  its  faculties.  We  study  out- 
ward things  about  us  to  render  them  into  thought.  We 
study  the  world  of  matter  for  the  science  which  lies 
within  it,  for  the  spiritual  germ  which  God  laid  away 
in  this  material  oyster.  To  the  mere  eye  of  sense  the 
stars  are  dots  of  light ;  to  the  thinking  mind  there  is 
astronomic  science  hid  in  them ;  they  are  a  revelation, 
not  of  God's  material  power  only,  but  of  His  power  of 
thought  also.     The  savage  sees  the  wild  flower, — 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      369 

"  The  primrose  by  the  river's  brim 
A  yellow  primrose  is  to  him, 
And  it  is  nothing  more." 

But  to  the  thinking  man  the  science  of  botany  is  in 
the  primrose.  To  the  senses,  man  is  matter,  hving, 
moving,  feeling ;  to  the  mind  he  is  a  most  curious  array 
of  physical  and  metaphysical  science.  These  outward 
things  contain  God's  thought ;  and  as  we  study  them 
we  get  communications  with  that  thought,  and  are  in- 
spired with  God's  wisdom.  Intellectual  toil  is  the  con- 
dition of  intellectual  inspiration.  The  whole  visible 
universe  is  one  medium  of  cummunication  with  God. 
So,  too,  man  studies  the  history  of  mankind,  or  his  own 
nature,  and  learns  yet  other  thoughts  of  God,  which 
become  his  thoughts,  communicated  from  God  to  us 
on  this  condition  of  intellectual  toil,  and  by  this  medium 
of  our  own  nature  and  history,  and  so  we  are  inspired 
by  God.  Now  just  as  men  cultivate  their  mind, 
scholastically  or  practically,  so  do  they  receive  com- 
munication of  God's  thought,  and  are  inspired  with  the 
intellectual  power  of  God.  Human  nature  is  one 
medium  of  communication  with  God.  So  as  the  mind 
becomes  cultivated  we  get  new  thoughts  from  him  in 
two  ways ;  first  from  the  things  about  us,  and  from 
things  that  have  been  and  still  are  taking  place ;  and 
next  from  the  nature  within  us.  New  ideas  flash  upon 
us,  coming  we  know  not  how ;  they  are  the  result  of 
our  mind's  action,  and  are  controlled  by  the  constitu- 
tion of  our  individual  mind.  The  poet  gets  them 
poetically,  the  philosopher  philosophically,  the  practi- 
cal man  in  the  form  of  business ;  because  one  cultivated 
his  imagination,  the  other  his  reflective  reason,  and  the 
other  his  practical  understanding,  each  after  its  own 

kind.     Now  as  each  does  this  faithfully,  he  grows  wiser 
XI— 24 


370   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

and  wiser,  and  has  more  intellectual  power  to  get  wisdom 
from  within   and  without.      So  it  is  with  the  human 
race.     Thus   the   civilized   man   has    more   intellectual 
power  than  the  rude  man  thinks  God  possesses.     New- 
ton knew  more  about  the  heavens  than  Homer's  god. 
Immanuel  Kant  understood  the  nature  of  man  far  bet- 
ter   than    any    New    England    savage    supposed    God 
understood  it.     Men  acquire  this  communication  of  in- 
tellectual  power   in   proportion   to    their   quantity    of 
intellectual    nature,    and    the    normal    use   they    make 
thereof.     The  man  of  great  genius  is  capable  of  more, 
the  man  of  small  genius  of  less.     He  that  uses  his  tools 
well  gets  more,  he  less  who  uses  them  ill.     "  To  him 
that  hath  shall  be  given,  and  he  shall  have  abundance." 
Now  we  can  receive  the  communication  of  intellectual 
power  from  God  only  on  this  sole  condition  of  intel- 
lectual work.     But  men  are  so  made  that  the  human 
race  continually  advances ;  men  are  bom  with  greater 
capacity  for  this  intellectual  power,  then  with  better 
opportunities   to   develop,  mature,  and  enjoy   it.      So 
from  this  twofold  condition  there  is  a  continual  increase 
of  the  intellectal  power  of  mankind ;  and  we  get  more 
and  more  truth  in  all  forms  from  God.     All  the  cir- 
cumstances which  improve  the  powers  of  man  help  us 
to  increase  the  intellectual  ability  of  man,  and  receive 
more  inspiration.     Thus  all  schools,  good  books,  and 
the  like,  help  to  develop  the  intellectual  nature.     These 
are  the  roads  which  the  Holy  Ghost  travels.     You  do 
not  hear  that  God  inspires  mathematical  truths  into 
men  who  never  undertook  to  cipher.     The  new  mathe- 
matical  ideas    come   to   men   busy   with   mathematical 
thought.     "  Fulfil  the  condition,  and  have  the  recom- 
pense," is  what  God  says  to  man.      Still  far  away  and 
above  all,  there  stretches  the  infinite  mind,  the  infinite 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      371 

wisdom,  the  perfect  object  of  intellectual  aspiration. 
The  finite  mind  industriously  holds  up  its  little  cup. 
The  Infinite  pours  down  from  His  fountain,  and  fills 
it  full.  When  the  oak-tree  is  a  span  log,  and  no  more, 
it  finds  moisture  and  solid  food  just  as  it  needs;  when 
the  oak-tree  is  a  hundred  feet  high,  with  great,  broad 
arms,  it  still  finds  moisture  and  food  enough. 

In  the  same  way  men  get  moral  inspiration,  and  com- 
munication of  God's  justice.  The  normal  use  of  man's 
moral  faculties  is  the  condition  on  which  he  gets  it. 
As  the  richer  harvests  come  from  good  seed  sown  in 
good  soil,  well  tilled,  so  do  we  get  richer  returns  of 
justice  from  the  conscience  which  we  nicely  cultivate, 
and  new  moral  ideas  spring  up  in  us,  and  we  grow  wiser 
in  conscience.  Here  too  the  amount  of  moral  inspira- 
tion is  in  proportion  to  the  quantity  of  the  man's  nature 
and  the  normal  use  thereof.  Here  likewise  is  progress 
of  the  individual  man,  and  of  mankind,  in  the  receipt 
of  justice  from  God,  and  on  the  same  condition.  Con- 
tinually, as  men  get  civilized,  men  are  bom  with  better 
organization  for  justice,  and  furnished  with  better 
means  for  the  development  of  the  moral  nature  they 
are  born  with.  Here  too  are  mediums  of  communica- 
tion. All  the  just  and  good  men  that  ever  lived,  from 
Moses  to  the  last  writer  of  the  New  Testament,  and 
from  him  to  our  day ;  all  the  noble  women  that  have 
ever  been,  the  goodly  company  of  prophets,  the  noble 
army  of  martyrs, —  all  these  are  mediums  for  receiv- 
ing this  moral  inspiration  from  God,  and  giving  it 
down  to  us.  The  House  of  Refuge  for  friendless  girls, 
asylums  for  the  unfortunate,  legislatures  which  re- 
enact  justice  into  laws,  courts  which  execute  humanity 
in  their  decrees, —  all  these  are  instruments  which  pro- 
mote the  communication  of  justice  from  the  Most  High 


372      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  IVIAN 

God.  Thus  mankind  advances  continually,  and  con- 
tinually becomes  more  just,  juster  even  than  the  old 
idea  of  God.  The  good  father  who  teaches  his  child 
to  obey  conscience,  to  be  kind  to  those  who  are  unkind 
to  him,  is  a  higher  being  than  the  author  of  Genesis 
supposed  God  to  be.  Miss  Dix,  who  goes  through  the 
land  caring  for  the  unfortunate,  prepares  mankind  to 
receive  moral  communication  and  inspiration  from  the 
infinitely  just  God.  Still,  go  as  high  as  we  may,  our 
ideal  travels  before  us,  a  cloud  by  day  and  a  fire  by 
night,  the  infinite  ideal  of  our  moral  aspiration ;  and 
the  more  we  gain,  the  more  we  want.  As  the  oak-tree 
becomes  larger  it  requires  more  light  and  moisture,  and 
as  we  grow  greater  we  ask  more  justice,  and  receive  it 
still. 

It  is  in  the  same  way  that  man  goes  on  in  his  higher 
devlopment,  and  receives  affectional  inspiration. 

All  these  come  from  the  infinite  source  of  all  things, 
and  we  get  inspiration  by  the  normal  use  of  our  facul- 
ties in  their  normal  condition,  not  by  their  abnormal. 
Inspiration  is  not  miracle,  it  is  law ;  it  is  not  capricious- 
ness,  it  is  a  constant  force.  Fulfil  the  conditions,  and 
the  inspiration  comes.  My  friends,  inspiration  is  a 
fact  in  human  history,  in  your  life  and  mine.  You  and 
I  may  have  communion  with  God,  have  it  constantly. 
The  Infinite  God  is  ultimate  source  of  all  things.  We 
go  to  that  eternal  fountain,  and  thence  draw  the  waters 
of  life  in  proportion  to  the  size  of  our  cup  and  our 
diligence  in  using  it.  The  well  is  very  deep,  but  it  is 
brimful,  and  the  man  with  the  shortest  arm  and  the 
smallest  cup  may  dip  therein  and  find  abundance.  As 
all  trees  root  in  the  ground,  and  take  hold  of  the  air, 
so  we  all  in  God.  There  is  only  one  kind  of  inspira- 
tion; it  is  the  income  of  God  to  our  consciousness  in 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      373 

its  various  modes,  intellectual,  moral,  affectional,  and 
religious.  There  are  different  degrees  of  it ;  Jesus  had 
much,  Paul  less.  The  degree  depends  on  us ;  it  does 
not  depend  on  the  caprice  and  variableness  of  the  Deity. 
There  are  high  hours  of  visitation  from  the  living  God ; 
we  all  know  them  in  our  ecstatic  moments,  when  we  are 
wrought  into  a  great  act  of  prayer.  Then  the  mind 
is  quick,  the  conscience  quick,  the  affections  travel  wide ; 
Me  can  forgive  any  sin,  love  the  worst  men,  be  kind  to 
the  vile ;  then  in  idea  we  are  perfectly  holy,  and  what 
satisfies  us  in  our  common  modes  of  consciousness  we 
tread  under  foot.  That  is  when  we  have  got  the  high- 
est degree  of  inspiration ;  it  is  the  result  of  our  former 
life  and  the  discipline  of  our  faculties,  for  when  we 
start  at  first  we  cannot  come  up  to  this.  All  faculties 
are  mediums  of  communication,  avenues  of  inspiration. 
God  does  not  build  a  road  from  Himself  to  us,  and  then 
refuse  to  travel  on  it.  You  and  I  may  have  inspiration 
of  the  same  sort  as  came  to  Moses,  to  Esaias,  "  whose 
hallowed  lips  were  touched  with  fire,"  and  to  Jesus. 
We  all  may  be  inspired.  When  you  are  faithful  to 
your  own  powers,  you  are  not  only  receiving  communi- 
cation through  them,  but  you  are  preparing  j^ourself 
at  the  same  time  to  receive  yet  more  and  more.  There 
is  a  continual  progress  of  this  inspiration  for  the  in- 
dividual and  the  race.  It  is  unbounded.  There  is  no 
limit  to  the  supply  in  God;  there  is  no  end  to  the 
capacity  in  mankind  to  receive  it.  Is  any  one  of  us 
so  good,  or  wise,  or  loving,  as  he  might  be,  ay,  as  he 
could  be?  We  shall  receive  this  inspiration  on  the 
natural  condition  which  belongs  to  our  soul.  Much 
material  power  is  there  in  the  world  not  yet  converted 
to  the  world's  use.  The  foodful  ground  will  double 
its  harvest  any  time  when  man  spades  it  through  with 


374   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

twice  the  thought  that  he  does  now.  How  many 
streams  run  down,  waiting  to  be  mills,  factories,  black- 
smiths for  mankind !  As  yet  we  have  used  but  a  small 
part  of  the  material  power  which  God  waits  to  com- 
municate to  us.  So  we  have  used  but  a  very  small  frac- 
tion of  the  intellectual,  moral,  and  affectional  power 
which  is  laid  up,  a  great  treasure  of  the  highest 
strength  in  the  nature  of  man.  You  and  I  can  draw 
therefrom  any  day  just  what  we  will,  and  what  we 
have  the  capacity  to  receive.  Doing  this,  we  shall  pre- 
pare the  way  for  better  things  to  come.  And  where 
we  painfully  travel  with  prayers,  and  tears,  and  pos- 
sibly with  blood  also,  the  human  race  may  move 
smoothly  onwards,  passing  over  the  road  which  our 
hands  have  leveled,  and  our  feet  have  made  easy  for 
the  world's  progress ;  and  then  other  men  will  go  fur- 
ther and  further  on.  Another  three  centuries  might 
make  out  of  the  intellectual,  moral,  and  affectional 
treasures  of  human  nature  in  New  England,  what  the 
last  three  centuries  have  made  out  of  the  material 
forces  of  this  continent. 

Like  the  devil  in  the  New  Testament  legend  of  the 
temptation,  a  false  doctrine  may  offer  mankind  whole 
kingdoms  of  the  earth,  if  he  will  fall  down  and  worship 
it.  It  cannot  convey  an  inch  of  soil  and  give  a  good 
title ;  it  is  only  a  squatter  for  the  night,  and  if  a  sover- 
eign in  the  darkness,  when  the  morning  dawns  he  is 
dislodged  by  the  real  owner  and  comes  not  back  again. 

THE  NORMAL  DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE   RELIGIOUS 
FACULTY 

The  religious  faculty,  connecting  man  consciously 
with  the  eternal  world  and  its  Divine  Cause,  is  the  great- 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      375 

est  of  all  our  spiritual  talents,  and  as  such  has  the  most 
abiding  power  and  far-controlling  force.  Its  action 
may  be  of  the  most  elevating  or  the  most  degrading 
tendency,  accordingly  as  it  works  well  or  ill,  with  our 
nature  or  against  it.  No  faculty  of  the  body  or  spirit 
can  so  debauch  and  brutalize  man  as  this  when  mis- 
directed or  abused ;  the  abuse  of  the  religious  talents 
wrought  such  havoc  in  the  scribes  and  Pharisees,  that 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  declared  that  publicans  and  harlots 
should  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven  sooner  than 
they. 

But  the  normal  development  of  the  religious  faculty 
has  the  most  ennobling  influence  on  the  whole  character ; 
nothing  so  strengthens  and  refines  a  man.  In  our  pres- 
ent stage  of  civilization  there  are  two  truths  which  seem 
necessary  to  the  development  of  this  faculty, —  the  idea 
of  immortal  life  for  each  person,  and  the  idea  of  the 
infinite  perfection  of  God.  These  are  no  doubt  the 
grandest,  the  highest,  and  most  valuable  ideas  which 
mankind  knows ;  these  are  the  two  greatest  lights  in 
the  heaven  of  human  consciousness,  to  rule  alike  our 
day  and  night ;  but  as  the  sun  and  the  moon,  they  are 
no  monopoly  of  men  of  genius  and  great  learning; 
they  are  not  conclusions  wrought  out  by  careful  study, 
but  facts  given  us  in  the  nature  of  man,  which  we  feel 
instinctively  at  first.  This  feeling  of  human  immor- 
tality and  God's  perfection  was  lived  as  life,  long 
before  it  was  uttered  by  the  philosopher  or  the  poet ; 
and  accordingly  no  truths  are  more  widely  welcomed 
throughout  the  world  than  these. 

With  these  ideas  there  may  come  forth  a  normal  de- 
velopment of  the  religious  faculty,  according  to  its 
nature,  and  this  marks  the  individual  character  with  a 
fourfold  excellence  of  tranquillity,  energy,  harmony, 


376      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  I^IAN 

and  beauty.  It  affords  a  composure  and  a  rest  which 
else  we  cannot  attain  to.  We  feel,  we  know  the  Infinite 
God,  and  repose  not  only  in  His  being,  but  in  the  facul- 
ties of  His  being,  in  His  perfect  power,  perfect  wisdom, 
perfect  justice,  perfect  love,  and  perfect  holiness.  And 
we  rely  not  only  on  the  existence  of  these  qualities  in 
God,  but  on  the  product  of  these  qualities,  on  His 
works,  which  are  like  His  being.  He  is  perfect  Cause 
of  all,  creating  all  from  a  perfect  motive,  for  a  perfect 
purpose,  as  a  perfect  means.  He  is  perfect  Providence 
not  less,  and  the  power,  wisdom,  justice,  and  love,  once 
active  to  create,  continually  act  to  preserve,  develop, 
and  bless.  Thus  knowing  God,  we  know  our  own  im- 
mortal life,  and  are  conscious  of  that  divine  nature  in 
us  which  shall  never  die,  but  unfold  and  grow  into 
worlds  of  new  excellence ;  for  our  soul  is  only  a  seed, 
whose  present  power  and  growth  we  know,  but  not  the 
forms  of  its  future  growth.  Thus  conscious  of  our 
immortality  and  God's  perfection,  we  are  full  of  trust ; 
our  absolute  allegiance  becomes  absolute  confidence; 
we  fear  the  end  of  nothing.  How  can  we,  if  we  are 
sure  of  God.''  We  know  there  is  a  Providence  which 
watches  over  us,  works  with  us,  for  us,  through  us, 
tends  us  by  day  and  by  dark,  protects  our  dear  ones, 
our  country,  and  all  mankind ;  that  He  desires  the  best 
of  all  possible  things  for  each  and  all ;  that  He  has  the 
perfect  justice  to  will  the  best,  perfect  wisdom  to  de- 
vise the  best,  and  perfect  power  to  achieve  the  best. 
What  then  can  we  fear.f^  Is  not  God  the  Father  and 
Mother  of  all?  and  if  God  is  for  us,  who  can  be 
against  us?  We  are  only  to  do  what  we  know  is  our 
duty,  and  take  what  follows  thence ;  it  is  what  God 
designed  should  follow  thence.  God  asks  no  more  of 
us,  puts  up  with  no  less.     We  may  succeed  in  life,  our 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      377 

plans  may  prosper,  health  and  happiness  may  attend 
us ;  and  then  we  have  a  rapture  beyond  all  this,  and 
God  will  make  eternal  welfare  out  of  this  transient 
success.  Or  we  may  fail  in  our  pursuits,  we  may  have 
to  bear  with  sickness,  poverty,  loss  of  friends ;  but  we 
know  that  which  we  suffer  here  will  be  compensated  at 
the  end,  that  what  is  discipline  to-day  shall  be  delight 
hereafter.  America  may  perish,  as  Naples,  Athens, 
and  Rome ;  Boston  may  go  where  Sodom  and  Gomorrah 
went, —  still  we  are  sure  that  the  Infinite  God  will  con- 
vert these  seeming  accidents  to  real  good.  Knowing 
this,  I  have  composure,  tranquillity ;  I  can  be  still ;  I 
can  face  the  racks  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  or  the 
cold,  continuous  sorrow  of  disappointed  earthly  life, 
and  smile  upon  it  all.  All  men  do  not  know  the  value 
of  this  tranquillity ;  but  he  who  has  been  in  doubt  and 
fear,  and  then  found  rest  for  his  soul,  knows  that  no 
common  joy  is  worth  the  very  pains  which  precede  this 
satisfaction.  A  man  wanders  in  the  doubts  of  science, 
and,  still  worse,  in  the  fears  of  the  popular  theology, 
which  is  called  Christianity,  and  he  thence  comes  out 
to  the  clear  light  of  natural  religion,  the  warmth  of 
piety  in  him,  and  the  sun  of  God's  infinite  perfection 
about  him, —  and  what  a  day  it  Is  he  walks  in,  con- 
trasted with  the  darkness  he  has  just  escaped  from! 

With  this  tranquillity  there  comes  new  energy.  As 
soon  as  we  have  a  certainty  of  God,  and  rest  In  His 
causal  providence,  we  have  new  confidence  in  our  own 
faculties ;  no  limb  of  the  body  then  seems  imperfect  or 
insignificant ;  no  power  of  the  spirit  mean, —  for  as  God 
made  them  as  they  are,  we  cannot  complain ;  we  are 
sure  they  are  adequate  for  His  divine  purpose,  and  also 
for  the  personal  duty  we  are  to  achieve ;  we  shall  use 
our  faculties,  great  or  little,  with  the  strength  God 


378   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

has  given  us.     If  our  spiritual  stature  is  small,  and 
the  crowd  throng  us,  we  know  that  God  has  planted 
some  sycamore-tree  for  our  little  stature,  into  which 
we  shall  climb  to  see  the  great  procession  of  heavenly 
things  pass  by.     Every  intellectual  talent  is  greatened 
by  the  culture  of  the  religious  faculties.     A  man  who 
has  this  religious  development  in  any  department  of 
industry  will  do  more  work,  with  less  confusion,  than 
one  devoid  of  it.     "  An  undevout  astronomer  is  mad," 
says  a  famous  poet;  he  looks  with  but  a  fraction  of 
his  eye,  he  has  cut  off  half  his  faculty.     But  an  un- 
devout blacksmith,   carpenter,  doctor,  lawyer,  is  just 
as  mad;  his  ami  is  the  weaker,  and  his  faculty  the  less. 
One  of  the  sources  of  gi'eatness  in  Dr.  Franklin  was 
his  religious  trust,  an  entire  rest  in  God,  and  tranquil- 
lity of  soul,  which  went  so  far  beyond  the  priesthood 
of  his  times  that  they   called  him  infidel, —  who  had 
flown  on  spiritual  wings  far  beyond  the  seeing  of  their 
eyes.     The  weakness  which  we  see  in  so  many   able- 
minded  men  in  America  to-day,  is  owing  to  the  fact 
that  they  tie  up  the  right  arm  of  human  strength,  and 
put   out   the   right   eye   of  human   light, —  and   what 
wonder  that  they  go  impotent  and  blind,  and  stumble 
by  the  way.'*     Then  how  much  clearer  is  the  conscience, 
with  what  greater  certainty  does  it  perceive  the  rule 
of  right,  when  it  knows  and  has   a  general  trust  in 
Him  who  is  the  right.     How  much  stronger  too  is  the 
will  to  adhere  to  it.     All  history  shows  that  nothing 
so  confirms  the  will  of  man  as  the  religious  faculty ; 
the  saints  and  martyrs  of  all  lands  and  of  every  age 
are  a  witness  of  it.     The  power  of  love  acquires  also 
a  similar  increase  of  strength ;  the  afFectional  feelings 
are  nicer,  the  quality  of  love  more  delicate,  the  quan- 
tity greater.     Our  love  for  those  nearest  and  dearest 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      379 

to  us  is  strengthened,  and  it  expands  to  a  wider  circle; 
we  love  our  country  more,  and  can  bear  more  for  it ; 
nay,  our  love  embraces  all  mankind,  without  distinc- 
tion of  tongue  or  nation.  Religion  is  the  deepest  in- 
centive to  world-wide  philanthropy,  and  at  last  we 
come  to  love  even  the  wickedest  of  men, —  those  who 
produce  or  encourage  the  crime  and  the  misery  which 
we  seek  to  abolish. 

With  this  energy  of  each  faculty  there  comes  a 
harmony  of  all ;  the  various  talents  work  well  together, 
and  there  is  a  certain  equilibrium  between  the  body  and 
spirit.  The  instinctive  passion  of  youth  gives  way  to 
the  counsels  of  the  spirit,  and  the  ambitious  calcula- 
tions of  manhood  only  quicken,  not  corrupt,  the  mind, 
conscience,  and  heart.  Nothing  so  harmonizes  the 
various  talents  of  a  man  as  well-proportioned  religious 
culture,  for  it  not  only  allows  the  natural  rights  of 
body  and  spirit,  but  demands  them.  Strong  will  and 
strong  conscience  are  enough  to  make  a  martyr, — 
often  a  most  incongruous  character, —  but  it  is  only 
this  harmony  of  all  the  powers  that  makes  the  saint, 
whose  duty  is  delight,  who  is  happy  while  he  bears 
the  cross,  whose  energy  of  work  is  rounded  off  at  last 
with  the  sweet  tranquillity  of  rest. 

Then  as  the  crowning  grace  of  this  fourfold  excel- 
lence, there  comes  what  we  may  call  the  beauty  of  the 
spirit ;  for  as  there  is  a  certain  handsomeness  of  the 
outward  person,  a  completeness  of  the  whole,  and  the 
perfection  of  each  part,  which  is  the  union  of  health 
and  strength,  that  draws  the  eyes  of  all  beholders,  and 
compels  the  admiring  reverence  of  whoso  sees, —  so 
there  is  likewise  a  beauty  of  man's  spirit,  the  comple- 
tion of  the  whole  and  perfection  of  each  part,  a  union 
of  spiritual  strength  and  health,  which  yet  more  in- 


380   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

timately  draws  the  eyes  of  the  heavenly-minded,  and 
compels  the  admiring  reverence  of  every  holy  soul. 
There  is  as  much  difference  in  the  beauty  of  spirits 
as  of  bodies.  Covetousness,  hate,  lies,  fraud,  unclean- 
ness  of  lust,  selfishness,  irreverence,  bigotry,  revenge, 
superstition,  fanaticism,  fear, —  these  are  the  ugliness 
of  the  inner  man,  and  no  corporeal  obliquity  of  limb 
or  feature  can  ever  compare  with  the  ghastliness  of 
this  inner  deformity.  But  temperance,  wisdom,  cour- 
age, charity,  reverence,  trust,  integrity,  holiness,  the 
aspiring  virtue  of  the  finite, —  these  are  the  beauty 
of  the  inner  man,  the  altogether  beautiful  of  the 
human  soul,  and  this  the  well-proportioned  culture  of 
the  religious  faculty  is  sure  to  bring ;  and  the  harmony, 
energy,  and  tranquillity,  which  are  the  special  colors 
that  complexion  the  soul's  excellence,  will  all  blend  into 
one  threefold  arch  of  heavenly  beauty,  a  rainbow  of 
hope  and  promise,  spanning  our  human  world.  All 
men  do  homage  to  the  highest  form  of  material  beauty, 
and  the  sculptor  and  painter  copy  its  loveliness  and 
immortalize  it  in  their  work,  and  men  worship  it  as  a 
thing  divine.  But,  what  is  this  mere  beauty  of  the 
evanescent  flesh  compared  to  that  transcendent  and 
eternal  loveliness  of  the  soul  which  dwells  within  the 
human  frame.'' 

What  homage  do  men  pay  to  the  beauty  of  the 
intellect,  reverencing  that  precious  jewel  in  the  homely 
head  of  Socrates !  Above  all  the  bravery  of  the  body 
they  count  the  piety  of  Jesus,  reckoning  and  honoring 
his  manly  virtue  as  the  eternally  beautiful  of  the  hu- 
man soul,  whereunto  churches  and  cathedrals  all  round 
the  world  are  builded  up,  as  not  unfitting  monuments. 

I  admire  the  men  of  great  intellectual  grandeur,  the 
inventors  who  create  thought,  the  organizers  who  make 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      381 

it  a  thing,  and  the  administrators  who  run  the  material 
or  human  mills  with  it.  I  greatly  reverence  such  as 
greatly  mix  their  thought  with  brute  material  things, 
and  so  convert  water,  wood,  metals,  earth,  fire,  light- 
ning, into  the  fonn  of  man,  to  do  his  human  work ; 
those  too  who  organize  humanity  itself  into  lovelier 
shapes,  till  the  national  lump  is  leavened  with  a  great 
idea,  and  rises  into  a  well-proportioned  state.  None 
reverence  more  than  I  the  poet's  great  imagination  or 
the  philosopher's  great  reason.  But  to  me  the  most 
cheering  specimens  of  mankind  are  not  these  men  of 
great  intellect ;  I  pass  by  Cromwell,  Napoleon,  Caesar, 
Hannibal,  and  Alexander ;  I  leave  Shakespeare,  Milton, 
Dante,  and  Homer;  I  fly  over  Kant,  Newton,  Leib- 
nitz, Bacon,  Descartes,  Aristotle,  Socrates,  and  others 
of  that  kin,  born  lords  of  reason,  of  most  illustrious 
birth,  or  on  the  common  level  of  ordinary  life, —  and 
I  pause  before  some  man  or  woman  of  common  intel- 
lect, but  well-developed  religious  faculty,  and  there  I 
bow  me  down  more  joyous  than  to  the  great  of  earth. 
Here  are  the  beatitudes  of  our  humanity,  the  just 
conscience,  the  loving  and  self-denying  heart,  the  soul 
that  trusts  God  with  lowly  and  aspiring  reverence. 
Here  I  find  the  proudest  triumphs  of  mankind,  and, 
going  out  from  many  an  humble  house,  where  dwells 
some  man  or  woman  of  surpassing  purity,  cleanness  of 
eyes,  and  delicacy  of  religious  love,  I  say,  "  God  cre- 
ated man  in  his  own  image,"  I  clasp  my  hands  with 
thanksgiving  and  say,  "  In  the  image  and  likeness  of 
God  createdst  thou  him,  but  a  little  lower  than  the 
angels,  and  here  thereof  is  the  proof." 

By  the  well-proportioned  culture  of  the  religious 
faculty  we  gain  this  tranquillity,  energy,  harmony, 
beauty.     We  set  the  little  wheel  of  our  personal  fac- 


382   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

ulties  in  the  great  stream  of  God's  law,  and  all  the 
omnipotence,  all  the  omniscience  of  almighty  justice, 
holiness,  and  love  come  and  turn  our  humble  mill  day 
and  night,  and  grind  for  us.  It  is  vain  for  wicked- 
ness to  sit  up  late,  to  rise  early,  to  eat  the  bread  of 
carefulness,  while  God  giveth  to  those  that  love  him, 
even  in  their  sleep. 

IDEALIZING  FORCES 

We  all  need  something  to  idealize  and  beautify  our 
life.  Science,  literature,  art,  music,  all  work  that  way, 
this  for  one,  that  for  another.  Poetry  is  a  very  com- 
mon idealizer.  The  affections  are  a  strong  and  beauti- 
ful power  of  this  sort ;  they  come  into  the  rich  man's 
palace  and  the  poor  man's  cottage,  and  they  cheer 
him  for  his  toil,  and  bless  him  at  all  times  of  his  life. 
But  the  most  powerful  of  all  these  idealizing  forces, 
and  the  most  beautiful  too,  is  religion  in  the  soul  of 
man ;  for  when  science  has  lost  its  charm,  when  music 
ceases  to  fascinate,  when  poetry  stirs  us  no  longer, 
when  the  objects  of  affection  have  passed  away,  and 
our  eye  sees  them  not,  and  even  in  the  darkness  our 
hands  grasp  not  their  well-beloVed  forms, —  still  the 
heart  and  flesh  cry  out  for  the  living  and  Most  High 
God,  and  still  that  Infinite  God  comes  down,  our  ever- 
lasting light  and  our  glory. 

In  his  prayer  a  man  enters  into  communion  with 
himself,  talks  with  his  higher  self  to  know  what  he 
ought  to  do,  and  with  his  lower  self  to  understand  what 
he  is. 

THE  WORLD  AS  SEEN  BY  THE  LIGHT  OF  RELIGION 

To    my    religious    eye,    even    if    uncultivated    by 

science,  the  world  is  the  theater  of  God's  presence.     I 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      383 

feel  the  Father.  I  see  the  beauty  of  His  thought  in 
the  morning  red,  in  the  mists  that  fill  up  the  valleys,  in 
the  com  which  waves  in  the  summer  wind,  in  the  bil- 
lows which  dash  their  broken  beauty  on  every  shore, 
in  the  stars  which  look  down  on  the  mists  of  the  valley, 
on  fields  that  wave  with  corn,  on  the  billows  that  dash 
their  broken  beauty  on  the  shore.      I  see  in  the  moon 

—  filling  her  horns  with  loveliness,  pouring  out  such 
a  tide  of  beauty  as  makes  the  farmer's  barn  seem  al- 
most a  palace  of  enchantment, —  the  thought  of  God, 
which  is  radiating  its  silver  sheen  over  all  the  world, 
and  changing  it  to  a  wondrous  beauty.  Nature  then 
seems  nearer  to  me,  a  thousand  times  more  beautiful, 
when  I  regard  it  as  the  work  of  God,  even  if  I  look 
with  my  eye  all  uncultivated  with  science,  or  do  not 
understand  the  wonders  that  I  see. 

But  when  science  comes  also,  with  the  light  of  reli- 
gion, to  expound  the  world,  and  I  see  the  laws  of 
inorganic  matter,  of  mineral,  vegetable,  animal,  human 
life,  when  I  see  that  these  laws  are  but  the  constant 
modes  of  operation  of  the  Infinite  God,  His  mind  tele- 
graphing to  us  in  the  material  world,  when  I  under- 
stand the  wonderful  hieroglyphics  which  He  has  writ, 

—  then  how  different  is  the  world !  What  was  before 
only  a  seed-field  to  feed  my  body,  or  only  a  workshop 
for  my  hand,  is  now  a  cabinet,  a  university  full  of  the 
beauty  of  thought.  The  beauty  of  nature,  then,  is  not 
mere  beauty  of  form,  and  outline,  and  color;  it  is  the 
beauty  of  law,  of  wisdom,  the  contrivance  of  means 
for  an  end ;  finite  means  for  an  infinite  end.  It  is  the 
beauty  of  love,  the  infinite  goodness  pouring  itself  out 
through  nature,  and  supplying  the  sparrow  that  falls, 
and  the  human  race  which  is  proudly  marching  on  to 
its  brave  development.     Yes,  then  the  whole  univei*se 


384   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

seems  to  mj  eye  but  as  one  vast  flower  which  blooms 
of  God,  and  is  fragrant  with  His  never-ending  love. 
Then  every  anemone  beneath  my  foot,  and  every  star 
above  my  head,  runs  over  with  the  glorious  thought  of 
God  which  fills  up  my  soul ;  and  the  universe,  which 
was  just  now  only  a  workshop  for  my  hand,  and 
then  a  curious  problem  for  my  head,  is  now  a  vast 
temple  for  my  spirit;  and  science  also  is  a  psalm  and 
a  prayer. 

The  aspect  of  individual  human  life  is  changed  yet 
more.  I  see  that  it  is  a  part  of  God's  providence. 
My  life  seems  not  now  so  poor  and  insignificant  as  it 
did  before.  It  is  a  part  of  the  infinite  world  of  God, 
a  needful  part,  an  indispensable  part ;  and  worthy  of 
God  to  create,  to  provide  for,  and  to  bless.  Without 
religion,  without  the  worship  of  the  Infinite  God,  I 
feel  myself  but  as  one  sand  on  the  shore  of  time ;  I  am 
so  little,  that  I  may  be  lost  in  a  world  so  large  and 
so  complicated.  In  the  jostle  of  the  universe,  what 
will  become  of  me,  say  I,  a  single  atom  of  soul,  a  little 
monad  of  spirit.''  What  will  become  of  me  in  a  uni- 
verse of  worlds.''  I  am  too  insignificant  to  be  thought 
of.  Then  I  ask,  what  shall  become  of  me  when  I 
cannot  care  for  myself.''  Who  shall  see  that  I  am  not 
lost  and  blown  off  forever?  But  when  I  know  of 
the  infinity  of  God,  and  the  relation  that  He  sustains 
to  the  world  of  matter  and  the  world  of  man,  then  I 
know  that  His  providence  comes  down  to  me,  that 
infinite  power  embraces  me,  that  infinite  wisdom 
watches  over  me,  that  infinite  justice  upholds  me,  and 
the  love  of  the  Father  folds  me  in  His  infinite  bosom, 
and  I  cannot  be  lost.  I  know  that  I  have  a  right,  an 
inalienable  right,  to  the  protection  and  the  blessedness 
of  the  Infinite  God ;  and  though  mortal  fathers  neg- 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      385 

lect  me,  and  mortal  mothers  drop  me  from  their  bosom, 
the  Infinite  Mother  will  hold  me  in  her  arms  of  blessed- 
ness and  beauty  forever  and  forever. 

Then  the  success  of  life  is  twofold  more  successful. 
Wealth,  riches,  fame,  power  of  mind,  genius,  the 
achievements  of  a  grand  life, —  these  I  should  look 
on  as  not  only  good  for  their  own  sake,  but  as  pins  in 
the  wall  whereby  my  human  vine  is  to  climb  up  to 
higher  growth,  and  bear  greater  clusters,  rich  with  the 
wine  of  mortal  life,  not  for  me  only,  but  for  all  man- 
kind ;  for  I  see  then  that  every  excellence  of  Confucius, 
of  Zoroaster,  of  Moses,  of  Jesus,  of  John,  and  James, 
and  Bridget,  and  Michael,  is  not  only  a  blessing  for 
each  of  these  persons,  to  go  on  for  ever  enlarging  in 
worlds  beyond  the  tomb,  but  is  a  blessing  that  spreads 
on  earth,  "  spreads  undivided,  operates  unspent,"  and 
ere  long  shall  be  communicated  to  every  mortal  child 
that  lives. 

Then  the  defeats  of  life,  the  sad  privations  of  the 
world,  poverty,  shame,  sickness,  death,  the  loss  of  the 
heart's  fondest  hope,  the  breaking  of  the  pillars  that 
we  leaned  upon  for  support, —  all  that  is  little ;  the 
good  God  foreknew  it,  provided  for  it  all,  and  will 
round  it  all  at  last  into  a  globe  of  infinite  satisfaction. 
In  my  youth,  the  merely  mortal  passions  and  affections 
put  round  me  a  globe  of  glories,  and  painted  thereon 
my  boyish  dreams,  the  fairest  things  I  knew.  How 
gay  they  looked  in  the  early  morning  of  mortal  life ! 
But  experience  comes  and  shatters  my  globe  that 
hedged  me  in  from  the  universe,  and  my  morning 
dreams  lie  in  a  ruin  at  my  feet.  But  the  breaking 
of  the  glass  that  environed  me,  the  shattering  of  my 
dreamy  prophecy,  that  introduced  me  to  the  heavens, 
and  over  me  are  the  perennial  stars  which  never  veil 
XI— 25 


386   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

their  face,  and  shine  forever  from  glory  to  glory. 
I  have  changed  the  glass  figure,  and  have  a  star  that 
never  sets. 

We  sigh  over  the  ruins  of  defeated  mortal  hopes, 
where  a  human  soul  went  through  into  eternity. 
There,  with  many  a  tear-drop,  we  build  us  a  monument, 
seeking  with  marble  to  honor  the  mortal  flesh,  so  dear 
to  our  arms  once,  and  our  hearts  too.  But  Religion 
builds  there  her  arch  of  triumph,  and  looks  onward  to 
the  unfading  glory,  and  unfading  promise,  unfading 
growth  of  what  was  here,  which  is  now  immortal  and 
divine  beyond.  Over  the  waste  places  of  the  earth, 
faith  in  God  plants  her  garden  of  Eden,  where  the  tree 
of  knowledge  is  fairer  than  the  bud  of  hope  we  bore 
in  our  bosom,  where  no  angel  with  two-edged  sword 
fends  us  off  from  the  tree  of  life.  I  know  of  no  sor- 
row which  religion  cannot  assuage, —  the  sorrow  for 
those  that  die,  and  the  keener,  more  bitter,  biting  sor- 
row for  those  that  do  not  die.  Religion  is  our  arm 
against  fate ;  nay,  there  is  no  fate,  when  armed  with 
that  enchanted  shield.  It  is  all  providence,  fatherly 
providence,  motherly  love.  Human  Nature  will  weep 
her  tears,  but  they  will  be  blessed  tears  when  they  are 
shed,  when  you  know  that  God  is  all  in  all,  and  no  little 
soul  is  ever  lost ;  that  God  takes  the  little  tear-drop, 
and  lays  it  by,  and  what  was  bitter  weeping  once  shall 
be  a  jewel  on  our  forehead  forever  and  forever. 

Have  you  been  wicked;  have  you  wasted  days,  and 
wrought  guilty  deeds  in  life ;  do  the  sins  of  passion  cry 
out  against  you,  or,  still  worse,  and  still  commoner  in 
New  England,  the  sins  of  calculation, —  this  is  the  sad- 
dest torture  of  the  mortal  heart.  If  I  have  wounded 
my  own  flesh  or  my  own  soul,  it  is  a  torture ;  but  if  I 
have   wounded   another's   flesh   or   another's   soul,   the 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      387 

torture  is  bitterer  still.  But  even  here  religion  is  com- 
fort. The  sin  was  partly  a  mistake,  grievously  to  be 
answered  for,  no  doubt,  still  not  eternal;  and  out  of 
dungeons  of  crime,  or  from  scaffolds  of  wickedness, 
shall  souls  go  up  to  God  unblemished  and  made  pure. 
It  cannot  be  that  the  Infinite  God  will  suffer  a  pirate, 
an  assassin,  a  malicious  murderer,  or  even  the  kidnap- 
per that  haunts  our  streets,  monster  though  he  be,  to 
rot  in  his  ruin.  Oh,  no !  He  made  all  these  for  right- 
eousness, and  even  in  their  sin-polluted  souls  there  is  a 
germ  that  may  lift  the  spirit  up  at  length  to  piety 
and  philanthropy,  to  love,  and  the  blessedness  of 
heaven. 

REVIVALS  OF  RELIGION 

Extraordinary  efforts  have  recently  been  made  in 
this  town  and  neighborhood  to  produce  what  is  called 
a  "  Revival  of  Religion."  These  efforts  have  been 
followed  by  certain  results,  and  many  more  are  to 
follow,  some  good,  some  ill.  Let  us  look  at  the  mat- 
ter with  the  careful  thought  which  its  importance 
demands. 

The  religious  faculty  is  the  strongest  of  all  our 
spiritual  powers,  as  indeed  it  must  needs  be,  consider- 
ing the  vast  function  it  has  both  here  and  hereafter ; 
and  hence  the  men  of  great  religious  genius  who  help 
develop  such  sentiments  and  ideas  as  the  coming  age 
requires,  always  take  the  strongest  hold  on  the  world, 
controlling  the  widest  multitudes  for  the  longest 
time,  and  receiving  the  most  lasting  gi*atitude  of  man- 
kind. Witness  the  influence  of  Moses,  Buddha,  Jesus, 
Mahomet,  and  the  adoration  paid  to  these  four  men 
to-day, —  for  each  is  somewhere  worshiped  by  millions 
as  a  God.     But  none  of  the  high  spiritual  powers  is 


388   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

so  easily  excited  as  the  religious,  and  hence  millions  of 
men  who  have  not  much  intellectual  development,  and 
who  have  little  moral  or  afFectional  culture  even,  have 
yet  a  large  activity  of  some  of  the  humble  religious 
faculties,  and  so  are  controlled  by  the  devout  disposi- 
tion. It  is  not  difficult  to  find  thousands  of  men  in 
New  England  who  cannot  be  stirred  to  any  intellectual 
curiosity,  nor  roused  to  righteous  lives,  nor  interested 
in  any  broad  scheme  of  human  benevolence,  who  will 
yet  kneel  and  pray  words,  and  join  churches,  and  who 
would  even  bear  tortures  under  the  excitement  of  the 
devout  feeling.  Nay,  men  with  little  mind,  with  un- 
developed conscience,  with  cold  hearts, —  ignorant  men, 
low  men,  cruel  men, —  can  yet  excite  the  religious  feel- 
ings of  multitudes,  leading  them  j  ust  where  they  choose. 
Ancient  history  is  full  of  examples,  whereof  modern 
history  has  no  lack.  In  our  own  land,  look  at  Joseph 
Smith  and  Brigham  Young, —  men  of  small  talents, 
with  no  progressive  ideas,  men  of  low,  malignant,  and 
licentious  character ;  and  yet  they  seize  the  religious 
affections  of  thousands  of  men,  and  lead  them  just 
where  they  will.  Other  examples  could  be  found,  of 
lesser  magnitude  and  humbler  mark,  much  nearer  home. 
These  things  being  so,  it  is  to  be  expected  that  the 
religious  faculty  should  make  greater  mistakes  in  its 
progressive  development  than^any  other.  It  is  the  big 
boy  that  falls  heaviest  to  the  ground,  and  perhaps 
bruises  his  limbs  the  worst.  The  follies  of  human 
science,  taught  in  the  name  of  human  reason,  are  noth- 
ing compared  to  the  follies  of  human  religion  taught  in 
the  name  of  miraculous  revelation  from  God.  Science 
never  taught  anything  so  ghastly  as  the  Calvinistic 
idea  of  Deity.  The  evils  which  come  from  false  phi- 
losophy and  bad  forms  of  government  are  trifling  to 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      389 

the  hardships  which  come  from  a  false  form  of  re- 
hgion, —  from  false  ideas  about  God,  about  man,  and 
the  relation  between  them.  Look  at  Italy  and  Spain 
to-day !  —  six  and  twenty  millions  of  people  crushed  to 
the  ground  by  a  false  religious  idea,  which  in  one  place 
a  king,  in  the  other  a  pope,  forces  into  the  people's 
throat  with  his  cannon-shot  and  bayonets ! 

Of  the  five  great  world  sects,  the  Brahmins,  the 
Jews,  the  Buddhists,  the  Christians,  and  the  Mahom- 
etans, none  started  with  such  humane  ideas,  with  such 
pious  moral  feelings  in  its  originators,  none  had  such 
a  magnificent  character  in  its  founder,  as  the  Christian 
sect,  but  no  one  has  taught  such  absurd  doctrines,  none 
has  practised  such  wanton  and  monstrous  cruelty,  and 
I  think  there  is  none  at  the  present  day  in  which  so 
great  fraud  is  imposed  upon  the  people  by  the  priest- 
hood. 

This  religious  feeling  being  so  mighty,  so  easily  ex- 
cited, and  so  powerful  for  good  or  for  ill,  it  will  be  at 
once  seen  that  if  any  man  can  arouse  it  thoroughly, 
and  guide  it  aright,  furnishing  true  ideas  of  religion, 
and  thereby  directing  men  to  the  natural  work  of  life, 
doing  common  things  in  such  sort  that  they  shall  grow 
up  to  noble  characters, —  he  will  do  the  very  greatest 
spiritual  service  that  one  man  can  perform  for  another, 
or  his  race,  because  to  his  reformation  there  must  be  no 
end;  for  the  subjective  feeling  and  abstract  thought 
of  that  single  man  will  come  out  in  the  concrete,  ob- 
jective life  of  individuals,  families,  societies,  nations, 
state  and  church,  and  spread  all  round  the  world,  and 
end  only  with  the  world's  termination.  Accordingly 
you  find  as  a  fact  that  all  the  great  progressive  move- 
ments of  mankind  begin  in  a  revival  of  religion ;  that 
is,  in  the  quickening  of  that  faculty  which  joins  man  to 


390   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

Infinite  God.  So  to  achieve  any  great  work  I  always 
appeal  to  this  faculty.  That  once  started,  then  I  have 
got  a  great  general  power,  which  can  be  turned  in 
any  one  of  a  thousand  beneficent  directions. 

Amongst  all  the  foremost  nations  of  the  world,  great 
respect  is  felt  for  the  name  "  Christianity ;  "  but  the 
word  has  two  quite  different  and  antagonistic  mean- 
ings. Sometimes  it  stands  for  that  form  of  religion 
which  consists  in  piety,  the  love  of  God,  and  morality, 
the  keeping  of  those  laws  which  God  writes  on  matter 
and  in  spirit ;  and  then  it  is  a  Bethlehem  star,  which 
goes  before  wise  men  and  men  of  genius,  alluring  mul- 
titudes of  hopeful  souls  to  new  triumphs,  to  which 
mankind  is  to  march  forward  and  make  certain.  But 
commonly  it  means  only  a  compliance  with  the  popular 
theology,  and  a  profession  of  belief  in  certain  doctrines, 
some  of  which  are  utterly  false  and  abominable,  and 
the  practice  of  certain  forms,  which  once  represented 
the  religious  life  of  earnest  men,  whose  footsteps 
shook  the  world,  but  which  have  now  only  traditional 
meaning,  and  represent  no  life  at  all.  In  this  latter 
case,  the  word  "  Christianity  "  is  not  a  Bethlehem  star, 
going  before  wise  men,  and  guiding  hopeful  nations ; 
it  is  only  a  street-lamp  at  the  door  of  a  common  tavern, 
fed  with  train  oil,  paid  for  at  the  town's  expense,  and 
daily  trimmed  and  lit  by  a  dirty  man  in  a  greasy 
frock,  who  does  that  work  because  thereby  he  makes 
the  easiest  and  most  respectable  living.  The  first  of 
these  two  things  I  will  call  the  "  Christian  Religion," 
because  I  believe  Jesus  of  Nazareth  meant  this,  and 
this  only,  when  he  said,  "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy 
God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with 
all  thy  mind,  and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  The  other 
I  shall   call   the   "  Christian   Formality,"   not   because 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS       391 

it  was  taught  bj  Jesus,  for  it  was  not,  but  because  it 
is  specially  and  peculiarly  appropriate  to  the  sect 
called  by  his  name. 

Now,  which  of  these  two  ideas  is  sought  to  be  built 
up  by  revivals,  and  the  results  which  flow  from  them? 
I  am  sorry  to  say,  that,  so  far  as  my  observation  has 
extended,  these  efforts  seem  designed  to  build  up  what  I 
have  termed  "  Christian  Formality,"  rather  than 
"  Christian  Religion."  The  operators  in  these  revivals 
teach  that  if  the  most  pious  and  moral  man  in  the  town 
does  not  accept  the  popular  theology  for  his  creed, 
and  observe  the  popular  ritual  of  their  sect,  then  he 
needs  conversion  just  as  much  as  the  most  abandoned 
profligate  in  a  brothel  or  a  jail;  that  if  such  a  man 
dies  without  accepting  the  "  Christian  Formality," 
God  will  plunge  him  into  everlasting  damnation,  and 
keep  him  there  forever,  and  will  take  exquisite  pleasure 
in  watching  the  never-ending  agonies  of  his  child.  It 
is  never  taught  that  piety  and  morality  will  save  a  man 
from  the  wrath  of  God ;  they  may  be  of  service  in  this 
life,  but  are  good  for  nothing  for  the  life  to  come. 

To  secure  this  end,  the  salvation  of  the  soul  from  the 
wrath  of  God,  powerful  ministers,  specially  trained  for 
the  work  of  getting  up  revivals,  hold  protracted  meet- 
ings for  prayer  and  preaching,  day  after  day,  and 
week  after  week,  holding  several  meetings  each  day. 
In  these  assemblies  there  is  no  discussion  of  anything ; 
a  few  speakers  have  it  all  their  own  way,  and  they  ap- 
peal to  the  fears  of  their  hearers, —  the  fear  of  death, 
and  the  fear  of  damnation  after  death.  The  sinfulness 
of  man  is  dwelt  upon  in  the  most  extravagant  manner. 
It  is  not  sin  in  the  concrete  —  drunkenness,  lying, 
licentiousness,  covetousness,  kidnapping,  dealing  in 
coolies,  buying  and  selling  slaves,  perhaps  your  own 


392      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

children  —  that  is  denounced ;  it  is  sin  in  the  abstract, 
sin  born  in  us,  and  not  to  be  got  rid  of  save  by  miracu- 
lous help.  Man  is  represented  as  a  poor,  feeble,  help- 
less worm  of  the  dust,  but,  alas !  a  worm  that  never  dies. 
The  preacher  dwells  on  his  lost  state  by  nature,  and 
his  inability  to  help  himself.  Then  he  speaks  of  God, 
and  takes  all  the  awful  passages  out  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament and  the  New  which  tell  of  the  wrath  of  God, 
and  eternal  damnation,  and  picture  the  torments  of  hell. 
He  makes  the  hearer  look  down  and  see  millions  after 
millions  of  men  in  the  wormheap  of  hell,  writhing  as 
the  fire  blazes  up  from  beneath,  while  the  devil  stirs  it, 
and  then  bids  him  look  up  to  the  calm,  peaceful,  and 
beautiful  heaven ;  and  then  tells  of  the  mercy  of  God 
in  sending  His  only-begotten  Son  to  save  mankind,  and 
how  easily  salvation  is  to  be  secured ;  —  the  man  is 
only  to  renounce  his  natural,  "  carnal  reason,"  and 
believe  every  thing  in  the  Bible  (or  what  is  more, 
every  thing  he  says  is  in  the  Bible)  ;  he  is  to  be  con- 
vinced that  his  nature  is  good  for  nothing,  and  go 
to  Christ,  and  rely  upon  his  merits  to  save  him.  Pas- 
sages are  read  from  the  Bible  of  the  most  appalling 
character,  and  when  men  shudder  with  horror,  the 
preacher  says,  "  These  are  not  the  words  of  man,  they 
are  the  words  of  God ;  "  and  the  audience  shivers  all 
over  with  the  thought.  Then  dreadful  hymns  are 
sung,  and  the  tones  of  the  organ  fall  upon  the  congre- 
gation like  the  world's  wail  over  its  own  slaughter 
and  ruin.  Then  come  descriptions  of  heaven,  and  the 
joy  of  the  blessed ;  and  the  preacher  tells  of  the  mother 
in  the  New  Jerusalem  looking  over  the  battlements 
and  down  into  the  ditch  of  hell,  where  she  sees  her 
profligate  son  writhing  in  the  beginning  of  an  agony 
that  is  to  last  forever,  and  then  striking  her  golden 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      393 

harp  anew,  and  saying,  "  The  Lord  God  omnipotent 
reigneth ;  blessed  be  the  name  of  the  Lord."  The 
whole  is  mixed  with  prayers  of  the  most  extravagant 
character.  You  are  told  that  now  is  the  only  time, 
this  the  only  way.  Then  come  individual  conversation, 
coaxing,  entreating,  threatening,  wheedling.  Skilful 
women  slide  into  the  confidence  of  men,  and  ask  them 
to  save  their  souls ;  shrewd  men  entreat  women,  like 
Mary  of  old,  to  "  ponder  these  things  in  their  hearts,'* 
and  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come ;  and  the  minister, 
in  a  voice  of  thunder,  tells  his  hearers,  "  He  that  be- 
lieveth  and  is  baptized  shall  be  saved ;  he  that  believeth 
not  shall  be  damned." 

You  see  the  eff*ect  of  this.  Remember  how  easy  it  is 
under  any  circumstances  to  excite  the  religious  feel- 
ings. Remember  how  strong  is  marvelousness  in  most 
men,  how  easily  reverence  is  stirred  in  any  generous 
nature,  how  terrible  and  agonizing  Is  the  power  of  fear, 
and  how  readily  an  excited  crowd  believe  any  thing  told 
them  by  a  famous  and  powerful  speaker,  who  horrifies 
and  palsies  them  with  fear,  electrifies  them  with  hope, 
prostrates  their  reason,  all  their  higher  faculties, — 
and  you  need  not  be  astonished  that  many  persons  are 
brought  over  to  the  preacher's  will,  and,  in  a  moment 
of  delirious  agony,  believe,  as  they  are  bid,  that  they 
are  the  greatest  of  sinners,  that  all  their  works  are 
wickedness,  and  that  God  is  the  dreadful  monster  they 
are  told  of,  ready  to  tread  them  down  into  bottomless 
torment. 

Now  and  then  a  good  eff^ect  is  produced.  Hard, 
cold  men,  given  to  the  lusts  that  war  against  the  soul, 
are  sometimes  scared  into  the  sober  paths  of  duty,  or 
frivolous  women,  consumed  by  worldliness  and  vanity, 
and  walk  therein  the  rest  of  their  mortal  lives.     But 


394      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

commonly  the  case  is  far  different.  Many  thoughtful 
and  moral  men  are  disgusted  with  this  folly  and  rant, 
and  turn  with  contempt  from  every  thing  that  bears 
the  name  of  religion,  and  the  most  painful  forms  of 
infidelity  and  atheism  are  sure  to  come, —  a  lack  of 
confidence  in  any  higher  law,  in  a  creating  Cause  and 
preserving  Providence  that  guides  the  world,  a  doubt 
that  it  is  well  to  follow  truth,  and  not  a  popular  lie. 
Many  who  are  converted  in  such  haste,  fall  off 
again  ere  long,  and  return  to  their  actual  wickedness, 
— "  and  the  last  state  of  such  men  is  worse  than  the 
first."  Some  ten  years  ago,  there  came  to  a  certain 
country  town  a  famous  revivalist,  and  forty-five  men 
and  women  were  converted;  within  six  months  after- 
wards, the  church  cast  them  all  out  again,  every  man, 
every  woman.  While  in  those  who  remain  steadfast, 
how  much  is  there  of  bigotry,  and  a  self-satisfied  and 
selfish  spirit !  nay,  worse  still, —  a  hatred  towards  all 
who  diff^er  from  them.  Nor  is  that  all.  What  ter- 
rible worldliness  and  inhumanity  ride  on  the  same  sad- 
dle with  the  most  zealous  Christian  formality, — 
Christ  on  the  pommel,  the  devil  on  the  pillion,  each  one 
rein,  each  one  spur! 

This  form  of  religion  rebukes  the  vices  of  passion, 
and  therein  it  does  well,  and  I  am  not  sorry  that  these 
vices,  which  cannot  be  reached  by  the  voice  of  entreaty, 
"  charm  we  never  so  wisely,"  can  yet,  by  this  iron 
knout  of  fear,  be  scourged  into  subjection.  But,  alas ! 
worse  vices  —  the  lust  of  money,  of  power,  of  distinc- 
tion, the  vices  of  old  men,  men  of  hard  heads  and  stony 
hearts,  spiritual  pride,  self-conceit,  arrogance,  bigotry, 
hate  —  it  leaves  in  full  strength. 

While  these  revivals  go  on,  what  a  lesson  there  is  for 
you   and  me !     What   zeal,   what   self-denial  have  our 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      395 

brothers  shown  for  the  highest  they  know !  If  we  have 
juster  ideas  of  man,  know  his  nobler  character  and  cor- 
responding destination ;  if  we  know  that  the  Infinite 
God,  who  loves  all  the  things  He  has  made,  suffers  no 
sparrow  to  fall  to  the  ground  without  the  benediction 
of  His  providence,  and  will  still  less  suffer  a  human  soul 
to  fall  to  final  ruin  ;  if  we  know  that  religion  is  the  nat- 
ural piety  of  the  heart,  and  morality  the  normal  exer- 
cise of  all  the  powers  of  man  ;  if  we  know  that  salvation, 
here  and  hereafter,  is  noble  character,  the  effort  for  it, 
the  longing  after  it,  the  prayer,  even,  that  we  may 
long  for  it, —  what  a  noble  work  is  demanded  of  you 
and  me !  If  we  have  set  our  eyes  on  that  religion 
which  human  nature  demands,  then  it  ought  to  appear 
in  our  superior  excellence  of  character.  We  ought 
to  be  better  citizens,  patriots,  husbands,  wives,  parents, 
children,  guardians,  friends.  We  ought  to  educate  our 
children  to  a  more  religious  manhood,  and  ourselves 
be  more  honest  in  our  work  and  trade,  and  kinder  and 
more  charitable  to  all.  If  grand  ideas  and  great  senti- 
ments lodge  with  me  at  night, 

"  Next  day  I  cannot  rest 
A  silent  witness  of  the  headlong  rage 
And  heedless  folly  by  which  thousands  die, 
Bone  of  my  bone  and  kindred  flesh  with  mine." 

These  things  being  so,  the  age  asks  two  things  of 
you  and  me.  One  is  criticism, —  that  we  tell  the  actual 
wrong,  and  the  consequences  thereof,  and  then  tell  the 
ideal  right,  and  what  will  come  of  that.  That  is  the 
first  thing.  The  next  is,  creation, —  example ;  that 
our  character  be  a  new  gospel,  which  shall  stir  the  in- 
nermost heart;  our  life  a  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  or  a 
sermon  in  the  street,  or  a  sermon  in  the  kitchen,  for 
which  men,  learning  to  comprehend,  shall  thank  God 


396      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

and  take  courage,  and  grow  strong  for  many  a  day. 
That  is  slow  work.  It  makes  no  noise;  it  will  not  get 
into  the  newspapers ;  men  will  not  ring  bells  and  say, 
'"^  Behold !  twenty  dipped  last  Sunday,  and  forty  sprin- 
kled to-day,  sixty  added  to  the  church ;  " —  but  un- 
pretendingly the  blacksmith  hammers  his  iron  all  the 
week,  his  very  anvil  made  an  altar  whereat  he  serves 
God ;  noiselessly  the  mother  goes  before  her  little  ones, 
walking  in  piety  and  morality,  and  "  her  children  will 
rise  up  and  call  her  blessed ;  "  honestly  the  trader  buys, 
honestly  sells ;  manly  men  look  after  the  sick,  the 
drunken,  the  crazy,  the  poor;  with  charitable  justice 
they  remove  the  causes  of  poverty  and  crime,  and  in 
brotherly  love  lift  up  the  fallen,  and  save  such  as  are 
ready  to  perish;  they  reform  the  drunkard,  they  lib- 
erate the  slave ;  the  savage  wilderness  bows  before  them 
and  disappears,  with  its  hideous,  howling  beasts  of 
prey;  behind  them  laughs  the  human  garden,  wherein 
all  the  virtues  bloom ;  —  and  "  by  their  fruits  ye  shall 
know  them ! " 

SUPERFICIAL  RELIGION 

It  is  to  me  one  of  the  most  pitiful  of  sights  to  see 
men  and  women  whipped  into  religion  by  misfortune,  as 
idle  boys  of  old  time  were  whipped  into  their  lessons, 
and  as  lazy  men  are  scourged  by  poverty  to  manly  in- 
dustry and  work.  These  persons  endure  for  a  time,  but 
when  money  comes  back,  when  new  friends  fill  the  ach- 
ing void  which  old  ones  had  left,  the  new  religion  is 
withered  and  dried  up,  because  there  was  no  deepness 
of  earth.  So  Jonah's  gourd  sprang  up  in  a  single 
night,  to  shelter  the  prophet's  head,  but  the  morning 
sunbeam  looked  on  it,  and  it  melted  down  and  was  gone. 
Such  persons  set  up  religion  in  the  day  of  their  dis- 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      397 

tress,  as  a  man  holds  an  umbrella  over  his  head  in  a 
summer  shower,  but  the  storm  passes  by,  and  religion  is 
cast  aside  as  the  umbrella,  to  lie  with  rubbish  in  a  comer 
till  the  next  storm  comes,  when  it  will  be  taken  up 
again  to  shelter  their  heads,  but  poor  and  old,  and 
dingy  and  rent,  worthless  as  a  shelter,  and  contemptible 
as  an  ornament.  There  are  some  homely  lines  which 
well  describe  the  consciousness  of  such  men : 

"  The  Lord  and  the  doctor  we  alike  adore 
Just  on  the  brink  of  danger,  not  before; 
When  the  danger  is  past,  both  alike  are  requited, — 
The  Lord  is  forgotten,  and  the  doctor  slighted." 

But  with  other  persons,  with  great  depth  of  soul,  the 
occasion  only  is  transient ;  the  religion  it  wakens  lasts 
forever,  and  bears  fruit  continually.  Now  and  then 
you  see  this  in  a  nation,  which  persecution  or  war 
scourges  into  religion.  It  was  so  with  the  Hebrews,  so 
with  the  founders  of  New  England.  Have  you  never 
seen  men  and  women  whom  some  disaster  drove  to  a 
great  act  of  prayer,  and  by  and  by  the  disaster  was  for- 
got, but  the  sweetness  of  religion  remained  and  warmed 
their  soul?  So  have  I  seen  a  storm  in  latter  spring; 
and  all  was  black,  save  where  the  lightning  tore  the 
cloud  with  thundering  rent.  The  winds  blew  and  the 
rains  fell,  as  though  heaven  had  opened  its  windows. 
What  a  devastation  there  was  !  Not  a  spider's  web  that 
was  out  of  doors  escaped  the  storm,  which  tore  up  even 
the  strong-branched  oak.  But  ere  long  the  lightning 
had  gone  by,  the  thunder  was  spent  and  silent,  the  rain 
was  over,  the  western  wind  came  up  with  its  sweet 
breath,  the  clouds  were  chased  away,  and  the  retreat- 
ing storm  threw  a  scarf  of  rainbows  over  her  fair 
shoulders  and  resplendent  neck,  and  looked  back  and 
smiled,  and  so  withdrew  and  passed  out  of  sight.     But 


398   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

for  weeks  long  the  fields  held  up  their  hands  full  of 
ambrosial  flowers,  and  all  the  summer  through  the  grass 
was  greener,  the  brooks  were  fuller,  and  the  trees  cast 
a  more  umbrageous  shade,  because  that  storm  passed 
by, —  though  all  the  rest  of  earth  had  long  ago  forgot 
the  storm,  its  rainbows,  and  its  rain. 

POPULAR  PREACHING 

What  sort  of  preaching  do  men  demand  in  the  pop- 
ular churches?  It  is  not  all  moral  and  religious  truth 
that  they  want ;  it  is  only  the  Scriptural  portions,  and 
you  must  keep  the  Scripture  mistakes  as  well.  It 
must  be  only  Protestant  truth ;  only  the  Unitarian,  or 
Calvinistic,  or  Methodist,  or  Baptist.  So  you  see  how 
the  truth  gets  winnowed  away,  till  it  is  a  very  little 
thing.  Nor  is  this  the  worst.  The  minister  is  not  to 
preach  all  of  religion ;  not  all  of  the  little  which  he 
needs  must  know ;  only  so  much  as  is  acceptable.  He 
must  not  weary  the  people ;  must  not  demand  a  deep 
piety  of  hard  and  worldly  men,  nor  of  frivolous  dan- 
dies. No,  it  is  called  sentimentalism,  it  is  moon- 
shine. He  must  talk  about  faith  in  God.  It  must  not 
be  faith  in  the  Almighty  God  present  here  in  Boston, 
and  everywhere  else,  with  eyes  of  terrible  loveliness 
that  go  through  the  world,  having  a  wisdom  and 
justice  that  overlooks  nothing,  a  love  and  holiness 
which  will  leave  no  wrong  unrighted  at  last.  The 
faith  he  preaches  must  not  mean  that.  It  must  be 
faith  in  the  graven  image  that  Nebuchadnezzar  set 
up,  with  a  head  of  gold,  bosom  of  brass,  and  feet  of 
clay.  He  must  not  preach  a  noble  morality  which  does 
right  always,  without  fear  or  favor.  He  must  not 
touch  a  public  or  private  sin,  must  not  speak  of  in- 
temperance to  rum-sellers,  nor  must  he  rebuke  licen- 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      399 

tiousncss  amongst  debauchees,  nor  say  a  word  against 
grinding  the  poor  in  the  face  of  the  grasping  and 
avaricious  milhonaire ;  must  not  speak  of  f  rivohty 
before  the  ears  pohtc  of  dandies  of  either  sex.  If 
he  speaks  to  slaveholders,  of  Baltimore  or  Boston,  he 
must  never  speak  of  the  sacredness  of  human  liberty. 
He  must  make  the  Epistle  to  Philemon  a  new  fugitive 
slave  law,  sanctioned  by  Christianity,  to  return  the 
poor  outcast.  He  must  not  expose  the  sins  of  trade ; 
it  would  hurt  men's  feelings,  drive  them  from  one 
church,  where  they  got  nothing  good,  to  another, 
where  they  could  get  nothing  worse. 

Nor  is  this  the  worst.  In  selecting  the  minister,  the 
inquiry  is  not,  "  Is  the  man  able.?  Has  he  talents  large 
enough,  and  genius  for  religion ;  education  which 
makes  him  master  of  himself,  and  a  leader  of  others, 
gathering  the  result  of  human  toil  for  six  thousand  or 
sixty  thousand  years.''  Has  he  the  morality  to  make 
us  better?  Has  he  piety,  to  charm  us  in  our  sorrows, 
to  beguile  us  from  our  sins.''  Has  he  courage,  justice, 
wisdom,  love,  and  religion  enough  to  make  us  better 
men,  the  church  better,  the  city  a  better  town,  and  the 
nation  a  better  state  ?  "  I  do  not  believe  these  ques- 
tions are  ever  asked  by  the  controlling  men  of  the 
prominent  churches  of  this  city. 

This  is  the  question  which  is  asked,  though  not  ad- 
mitted :  "  Is  he  low  enough  for  us,  mean  and  servile 
to  the  right  degree.''  and  can  he  obscure  the  light  of 
Christianity  so  that  it  shall  not  dazzle  our  eyes, — 
which  are  keen-sighted  as  the  eagle's  to  look  at  money 
and  respectability,  but  which  are  stone-blind  when  we 
look  at  truth  and  righteousness  and  God?  " 

Christianity,  my  brothers,  is  free  piety  first  of  all, 
and  free  goodness  next,  and  free  thought.     That  is. 


400   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

Christianity  in  the  abstract.  It  is  concretized  and 
made  human  in  the  person  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth;  not 
the  whole  of  it,  but  as  much  as  we  are  likely  to  under- 
stand. But  is  that  abstract  Christianity  the  ideal  of 
the  churches  of  Boston.?  Is  Jesus  Christ  the  ideal  of 
Christians  which  they  look  to  see  realized?  Only  the 
idol ;  the  substitute  for  life,  not  the  stimulus  thereto. 
In  the  ideal  of  a  church,  men  go  thither  to  become 
better.  Is  that  the  popular  motive  for  church-going? 
No !  The  Christianity  of  this  city  is  mainly  a  pre- 
tense. Do  you  believe  the  mass  of  the  people  wish 
Christianity  preached  in  the  hundred  churches  of  this 
city,  to  have  actual  wrong  preached  down,  and  ideal 
right  preached  up;  that  they  would  honor  the  man 
who  would  dare  to  preach  thus?  As  they  honored 
Jesus,  with  a  crown  of  thorns  and  a  cross.  "  Hail, 
preacher  of  Christianity ! "  would  sound  as  well  in 
Boston  as  "  Hail,  King  of  the  Jews ! "  sounded  in 
Jerusalem. 

In  the  midst  of  this  departure  from  the  ideal,  and 
setting  up  an  idol  in  its  place,  there  is  something  for 
you  and  me  to  do, —  and  that  is  to  set  the  Christian's 
ideal  plainly  before  us,  to  look  on  it  often  in  our 
prayers,  though  with  eyes  streaming  with  penitence, 
to  measure  our  thoughts,  words,  and  feelings,  and 
see  that  the  faith  that  is  in  us  be  worthy  of  a  Christian 
man. 

THEMES  FIT  FOR  SUNDAy's  PREACHING 
Sunday  before  last  I  spoke  of  the  Prospect  of  Demo- 
cratic Institutions  in  America.  It  was  near  the  anni- 
versary of  Washington's  birth,  and  the  occasion  of 
the  day  and  the  peril  of  the  times  alike  demanded  some 
mention  of  that  subject.     Last  Sunday  I  said  some- 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      401 

thing  of  the  result  of  the  most  democratic  institutions 
in  the  world,  as  it  appears  in  the  Material  Condition 
of  the  People  of  Massachusetts, —  for  the  significance 
of  these  institutions  appears  in  the  numbers  of  people, 
their  property,  health,  education,  and  their  means  for 
preserving  their  persons  and  their  property. 

External  subjects  were  both  of  these,  yet  of  great 
importance  to  us  all.  Some  men  think  them  not  quite 
fit  for  Sunday's  preaching.  "  One  is  politics,"  say 
they,  "  the  other  mere  economy ;  neither  is  better  than 
ciphering."  No  doubt  of  it.  But  there  must  be 
foundations  to  the  house,  outer  walls,  and  roof,  not 
less  than  kitchen,  parlor,  chambers,  and  the  like,  with 
their  several  furniture.  Masons  must  do  their  rough, 
laborious  work  before  the  upholsterer  can  be  called  in. 
Let  no  man  despise  the  great  thick  walls  of  granite 
laid  under  ground,  nor  the  piles  of  wood  they  some- 
times rest  on,  driven  ten  or  twenty  yards  into  the  earth. 
The  inide  bricks  piled  on  the  foundation-stones  are 
likewise  indispensable ;  so  also  the  slate-stones  on  the 
roof  whereunder  all  the  joys  of  the  family  are  snugly 
nested.  Without  the  political  institutions  of  the 
democracy,  the  great  general  welfare  of  Massachu- 
setts would  not  be  possible ;  and  without  that  general 
welfare,  represented  by  peace,  plenty,  health,  means 
of  education,  power  to  protect  property  and  person, 
why,  the  common  religion  would  be  quite  other  than  it 
is  now.  If  starving  men  pray,  it  is  only  for  bread ; 
fulness  is  then  counted  the  first  virtue,  and  a  dinner 
is  imputed  to  a  man  for  righteousness.  Men  under 
tyrannies  either  crouch  down  into  superstition,  or,  if 
too  noble  for  that  disgraceful  decay,  they  seek  first 
of  all  to  punish  the  crimes  of  state  which  keep  them 

down.     That  is  not  first  which  is  spiritual ;  it  is  the 
XI— 26 


402   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

flower  that  comes  after  the  root,  and  out  of  the  bud, 
not  before  it. 

Men  say  you  should  not  think  of  the  week  on  Sun- 
day, nor  of  your  business  in  your  devotion,  nor  bring 
your  world  into  your  church.  But  this  is  just  what  I 
would  do, —  remember  the  week  in  my  Sabbath,  my 
business  in  my  prayer,  the  world  in  my  church.  I 
would  do  this  that  all  these  things  might  be  sanctified. 
In  your  highest  state,  it  is  always  well  to  remember 
your  lowest,  and  so  get  lifted  up. 

THE  POWER  OF  RELIGION 

In  the  market,  the  reading-room,  the  editor's  office, 
the  court-house,  or  the  senate-house,  religion  seems  a 
very  small  power,  which  affects  nobody  much.  Young 
men  graduating  at  college  say  they  will  be  lawyers,  or 
doctors,  or  merchants,  and  lay  hold  on  some  influence 
which  moves  men ;  religion  they  will  not  touch,  it  not 
moving  men.  It  is  left  out  of  the  account  of  public 
powers  by  the  political  economist,  and  statesmen  smile 
gravely  when  you  speak  of  religion  as  one  of  the 
forces  that  sway  the  world,  and  think  you  are  young. 
But  when  you  come  to  look  at  the  history  of  nations, — 
America,  England,  France,  Germany, —  you  see  that, 
after  all,  it  is  sentiments  and  ideas  of  religion  which,  in 
their  silent  or  their  stormy  action,  sway  the  nation  and 
control  the  State ;  and  when  you  take  into  your  account 
the  whole  life  of  the  human  race,  when  you  look  at  such 
facts  as  Puritanism,  Protestantism,  Mahometanism, 
Christianity, —  then  you  see  that  all  the  great  civiliza- 
tions of  the  world  have  sprung  out  of  religious  feeling, 
have  been  shaped  and  controlled  by  religious  thought. 
Men  love  to  connect  religion  with  the  cardinal  points 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      403 

of  their  life,  with  the  birth  of  a  baby,  with  the  betrothal 
of  a  girl,  with  a  marriage  or  a  funeral.  The  finite 
hinges  on  the  infinite,  and  the  little  life  of  Oliver  and 
Jane  revolves  round  that  point ;  the  large  life  of  Eng- 
land and  America  turns  on  the  same,  and  the  world 
hinges  on  its  consciousness  of  God.  In  the  long  war- 
fare of  the  world,  the  saint  conquers  the  warrior,  and 
the  prophet  of  religion  triumphs  over  the  statesman, 
though  he  have  a  kingdom  at  his  back.  Did  not  a 
carpenter's  boy,  boni  in  Bethlehem,  drive  Jupiter 
Olympus  out  of  the  heathen  world.? 

THE  GREAT  PECULIARITY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

The  great  peculiarity  of  Christianity  is  not  recog- 
nized even  now.  The  common  notion  of  Christianity 
is  that  it  is  a  positive  command,  and  rests  on  the  au- 
thority of  one  man,  and  not  on  the  nature  of  God ;  that 
Jesus  was  only  a  wiser  INIoses,  who  received  the  laws 
of  God,  and  made  new  ones  and  added  thereto.  And 
so  the  common  ecclesiastical  mode  of  proving  Chris- 
tianity is  by  quoting  texts.  Men  do  not  see  that  the 
New  Testament  contains  things  that  establish  unchris- 
tianity,  sometimes  put  into  the  mouth  of  Christ  him- 
self. One  of  the  most  dreadful  things  in  the  world 
is  tyranny;  but  the  worst  tyranny  can  be  justified 
out  of  the  commands  of  St.  Paul,  and  it  has  been 
justified.  The  accidental  things  of  the  New  Testa- 
tament,  which  have  no  relation  to  Christianity,  are 
thought  to  be  of  great  importance. 

Christianity  is  not  to  rest  on  the  authority  of  Jesus, 
but  to  become  the  great  practice  of  absolute  religion, 
and  to  caiTy  us  farther  forward,  and  not  to  be  re- 
strained even  by  the  limitations  of  Jesus  himself,  if  he 
had  such. 


4*04   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

Man  is  the  highest  work  of  God,  Christianity  the 
highest  revelation  of  God.  Moses  and  Jesus  were  a 
partial  revelation  of  God,  for  man  is  more  than  Moses 
and  Jesus.  Christianity  is  not  more  than  human  na- 
ture, but  it  is  less  ;  it  is  only  one  side,  but  its  glory  is 
that  it  completely  represents  and  satisfies  that  side. 
The  ethics  of  Christianity  are  not  more  than  human 
nature.  With  the  Hebrew  ethics  the  appeal  was  made 
to  authority ;  with  the  classic  ethics  the  appeal  was 
made  to  human  history,  to  experience  and  man's  sense 
of  expediency ;  but  with  the  Christian  ethics  the  stand- 
ard is  human  nature,  and  the  love  of  right,  of  truth, 
and  of  justice;  in  one  word,  the  love  of  man  and  the 
love  of  God;  and  round  these  two  foci,  goodness  and 
piety,  hereafter  the  absolute  religion,  in  even  balance, 
is  to  run  and  form  its  fair  and  harmonious  ellipse  of 
the  perfect  religion.  The  Christian  man  is  to  do  right, 
not  because  Christ  said  so,  but  because  it  is  right;  not 
only  the  right  which  Christ  commanded,  but  all  which 
he  can  learn.  Pure,  unsullied  love  is  to  be  the  highest 
passion  of  man.  The  God  of  Christianity  is  the  God 
of  love.  Morality  is  to  spring  spontaneous  and  un- 
bidden out  of  the  human  heart,  free  as  reason,  beau- 
tiful as  truth.  Here  is  Christianity ;  not  the  Chris- 
tianity of  the  past,  nor  of  the  present,  of  Catholic 
or  of  Protestant ;  but  the  Christianity  of  man's  heart, 
of  man's  nature,  and  God's  nature,  and  with  the  glori- 
ous gospel  of  everlasting  life ;  and  it  seeks  in  man 
the  standard  of  right,  absolute,  perfect,  and  inflexible. 
It  enthrones  Reason  and  Conscience  as  king  and  queen. 
Religion,  the  royal  child  of  this  imperial  pair,  lays  her 
hand  on  this  harp  of  a  thousand  strings,  and,  tuning 
all  to  harmony,  wakes  the  human  hymn  of  sweet  accord 
which  steals  up  to  God,  the  prophetic  chant  of  the 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      405 

nations  as  they  march  to  their  bright  destination,  seek- 
ing to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God,  which  has  been 
the  prophecy  of  the  saint,  and  is  to  be  the  brightest 
achievement  of  mankind.  As  they  go,  they  seem  to 
sing,  "  Lift  up  your  gates,  for  the  King  of  Glory 
shall  come  in."  Future  ages  speak  to  us  and  say, 
"  Who  is  this  King  of  Glory.''  "  Man,  is  the  answer; 
Man  marching  in  his  majesty,  and  going  home  to  God. 

The  Hebrew  ethics  are  behind  us ;  and  the  heathen, 
with  their  anarchies,  their  despotisms,  war,  slavery, 
ignorance,  and  want ;  not  unredeemed  by  the  presence 
of  earth's  mighty  men, —  Moses,  Zoroaster,  Pythago- 
ras, Socrates,  and  the  rest.  Around  us  lies  the  toil- 
some world,  dimly  enlightened  from  above ;  our  own 
transactions  have  dimmed  the  windows  through  which 
the  light  should  come.  Here  the  sons  of  men  walk, 
some  with  prone  faces,  and  some  erect,  their  coun- 
tenance unveiled,  and  future  ages  sparkling  in  their 
eye,  and  worshiping  as  they  go,  the  one  dear  God, 
who  pities  their  errors,  foreknows  their  wanderings, 
but  with  providential  ann  surrounds  the  sinner  and 
the  saint,  and  while  he  bears  the  innocent  lamb,  his 
right  hand  still  leads  back  the  wanderer,  still  blessing 
all   as   heretofore. 

Such  is  behind  us,  around  us ;  but  before  us  light 
dawns,  and  shines  on  pure  fields  and  perfect,  where 
Christianity,  the  inward  thought,  shall  be  the  outward 
fact ;  and  Christian  piety  shall  be  the  common  senti- 
ment ;  not  rare,  but  the  sentiment  of  every  day ;  and 
where  Christian  virtues  shall  become  Christian  deeds ; 
and  the  ideal  of  Christian  prayer  become  the  actual, 
the  daily  Christian  life,  and  men  are  friends  of  men, 
nations  of  nations,  and  all  of  us  conjoined  to  God. 


406      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 
man's  future  controlled   by   his  present 

It  seems  to  me  plain  that  our  condition  in  the  next 
life  must  be  consequent  on  our  character  and  conduct 
here.  But  our  character  and  conduct  depend  on  such  a 
long  series  of  circumstances,  that  it  is  not  only  diffi- 
cult, but  it  is  wholly  impossible,  that  you  and  I  can 
tell  how  much  any  man  is  to  be  blamed,  how  much  any 
man  is  to  be  praised.  I  know  how  much  I  am  to  be 
blamed  very  often ;  I  do  not  know  how  much  anybody 
else  is.  He  will  judge  for  himself  perhaps;  the  good 
God  surely  will.  I  know  what  actions  and  motives 
are  noble ;  I  esteem  men  who  do  such  actions,  have  such 
motives,  and  show  a  noble  character.  But  to  the  eye 
that  takes  in  the  whole  universe,  the  eternal  as  well 
as  the  present,  things  must  have  a  very  different  look. 
How  much  of  our  character  depends  on  the  physical 
constitution  we  are  born  with,  the  size  and  shape  of 
the  brain,  the  temperament;  how  much  on  the  circum- 
stances of  early  life,  parents  and  education !  Even 
the  character  of  the  church  that  a  man  is  bred  up  in 
determines  whether  he  shall  be  a  kidnapper  or  a 
philanthropist,  very  often.  How  much  depends  on 
the  temptations  and  opportunities  of  daily  life !  I 
make  no  doubt  there  are  bad  men  who  have  deserved  a 
prison  for  their  conduct  on  earth,  who  will  yet  rise  in 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  in  God's  sight  less  blameworthy 
than  the  judge  who  condemned  them  from  the  bench. 
God  can  understand  these  things,  and  must  doubtless 
make  allowances.  I  cannot  suppose  that  He  is  to  re- 
ward men  for  having  had  opportunities  for  develop- 
ment, and  punish  others  for  not  having  had  such 
opportunities.  Therefore  when  we  say  that  a  man's 
condition  in  heaven  must  be  controlled  by  his  character. 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      407 

we  go  far  into  the  recesses  of  our  innermost  being; 
I  mean,  it  must  be  dependent  on  our  fidelity  to  our 
nature  here. 

I  cannot  think  that  death  is  a  misfortune  to  any 
man.  It  must,  it  seems  to  me,  be  a  step  forward,  even 
for  the  worst  man,  whose  life  has  been  crooked  from 
beginning  to  end,  stained  with  crime  all  the  way 
through.  The  good  God  will  suffer  no  son  of  perdi- 
tion to  fall  to  the  ground.  In  our  justice  there  is 
more  vengeance  than  love ;  we  want  to  smite  down  the 
man,  because  he  has  done  us  a  wrong.  But  the  In- 
finite God  looks  out  for  each  offender,  and  while  He 
takes  care  of  the  whole  world,  so  that  not  an  atom 
of  flower-dust  is  lost,  will  take  care  of  every  individ- 
ual soul. 

This  doctrine  of  immortality  is  of  priceless  value  as 
an  encouragement  for  the  individual  and  for  mankind. 
The  seed  we  sow  in  time  comes  up  and  blossoms  in 
eternity.  Then  what  a  consolation  is  it  to  say,  I 
know  that  character  is  its  own  reward. 

But  how  much  suffering  there  is  in  this  world  for 
which  man  wants  compensation,  part  of  which  he  has 
not  brought  upon  himself,  part  of  which  he  has.  The 
most  obvious  justice  shows  that  if  a  man  has  suffered 
wrongfully,  he  ought  to  have  some  compensation  in 
the  next  life;  a  deeper  justice  shows  that  if  he  has 
sinned  he  ought  to  have  a  chance  to  retrieve  his  wrong, 
I  expect  to  suffer  in  the  next  life,  as  in  this,  for  every 
conscious  wrong  thing  that  I  have  done ;  and  I  will  lift 
up  my  soul  and  say,  "  Father  in  heaven,  I  thank  Thee 
for  it.  Even  by  suffering  let  me  be  made  better;  let 
me  step  ever  forwards  and  upwards."  But  what  a 
comfort  and  consolation  there  is  in  this.  Our  tears 
drop  into  an  ocean  that  seems  bitter ;  they  are  changed 


408   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

into  pearls,  and  we  shall  wear  them  round  our  forehead ; 
and  the  powers  of  our  soul  shall  be  enlarged,  and  I 
doubt  not  that  ere  we  have  been  dead  many  years  we 
shall  have  expanded  into  excellence,  intellectual,  moral, 
affectional,  and  religious,  which  we  dream  not  of  here, 
in  our  highest  conceptions.  This  strengthens  us  for 
every  duty,  prepares  us  for  every  trial  and  cross. 

man's  eternity 

Human  machines  for  printing,  weaving,  and  the  like, 
wear  out  at  last;  but  the  divine  machine  of  man  or 
mankind  never  wears  out,  and  as  it  goes  on  produces 
more  and  more  perfect  and  lofty  specimens  the  longer 
time  it  runs.  If  I  know  that  I  am  to  live  forever,  and 
to  increase  in  quantity  and  quality  of  being  continu- 
ally, that  it  is  so  with  every  little  baby  that  is  bom  and 
dies  to-day,  with  all  mankind, —  savage,  civilized,  en- 
lightened,—  how  very  trivial  seem  the  disasters  which 
befall  me  or  mankind,  especially  if  I  know  they  have 
all  been  foreseen  and  overruled  for  the  ultimate  good 
of  every  child  that  suffers !  I  pray  my  foolish  pray- 
ers to  God, — "  O  Father,  give  me  riches,  power,  the 
praise  of  men  to-day."  "  Dear  child,"  says  God,  "  I 
will  not  give  you  these  things ;  I  will  give  you  more 
vast  faculties,  capable  of  infinite  development,  with 
all  eternity  for  their  growth,  their  use,  and  their  enjoy- 
ment. Take  these  things,  and  be  contented  with  noth- 
ing else." 

I  am,  let  me  suppose,  a  poor  unfortunate  mortal; 
nothing  goes  well  with  me ;  I  go  ill  with  myself.  I  am 
driven  about,  doing  much  that  I  would  not.  But 
here  within  a  life-sail  of  me  is  eternity.  This  grub 
of  a  body  goes  through  its  chrysalis  of  death,  and  the 
winged  soul  is  borne  to  its  appropriate  place.     It  shall 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      409 

carry  with  it  nothing  of  this  earth,  but  only  the  result 
of  my  use  of  life ;  and  it  shall  make  small  odds  to  the 
infinite  justice  of  the  Father  of  us  all,  whether  that 
faithfulness  had  a  handful  of  brain  more  or  less,  or  a 
handful  of  gold  more  or  less,  or  of  renown. 

THE  TRANSCENDENT  WORLD 

Matter  and  spirit  are  the  only  two  forms  of  existence 
that  we  directly  know,  the  one  by  sensational  observa- 
tion, the  other  by  spiritual  consciousness.  If  you  and 
I  were  matter  and  nothing  else,  we  should  know  nothing 
of  spirit ;  if  spirit  and  no  more,  we  should  know  noth- 
ing of  matter ;  but  now  we  know  both,  because  ourselves 
are  both  material  and  spiritual.  But  yet,  as  we  are 
only  matter  and  spirit,  we  know  nothing  directly  of 
that  transcendent  world  which  is  above  matter  and 
above  spirit;  we  know  nothing  of  the  details  thereof, 
but  we  cannot  suppose  that  God  is  limited  to  these  two 
forms  of  existence,  matter  and  spirit ;  He  must  tran- 
scend both.  There  may  be  other  worlds  of  existence 
as  much  superior  to  ours  as  the  mind  of  Von  Humboldt 
is  superior  to  this  drop  of  water.  I  make  no  doubt 
that  there  are  such  transcendent  worlds,  peopled  with 
beings  fitted  to  their  sphere.  I  doubt  not  that  departed 
spirits  are  in  that  world,  with  power,  function,  blessed- 
ness, as  much  superior  to  those  of  Von  Humboldt  or 
Florence  Nightingale,  as  their  power,  function,  and 
enjoj'ment  are  superior  to  those  of  the  dullest  insect 
on  this  plant  beneath  my  hand.  I  doubt  not  that  by 
the  facts  of  observation  and  consciousness  God  is  mani- 
fest to  beings  in  that  world  In  a  style  of  glory  such  as 
you  and  I  can  no  more  directly  dream  of  than  the  little 
insects  on  this  plant  can  dream  of  the  reflective  con- 
sciousness of  philanthropic  Miss  Nightingale  or  philo- 


410   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

sophic  Humboldt.  But  as  directly  I  know  nothing  of 
that  world  bj  observation  or  consciousness,  I  do  not 
meddle  much  therewith,  and  I  never  seek  evidence  of 
God  therefrom.  When  we  shall  be  turned  into  that 
world,  it  will  be  soon  enough  for  you  and  me  to  attend 
to  its  duties;  but  here  I  think  we  may  be  pardoned 
if  in  our  sad  days  we  cast  longing  looks  upwards  and 
forwards  towards  that  promised  land  which  is  our  cer- 
tain heritage ;  and  if  women  and  men  with  whom  the 
world  has  gone  hard,  do,  in  their  gloominess,  look  for- 
ward to  that,  and  long  to  be  present  in  it,  and  count 
the  present  time  to  move  slow,  I  find  no  fault  with  them. 
We  all  indulge  in  this  feeling.  What  would  become 
of  us  if  there  was  not  that  certain  and  ideal  world 
which  we  could  flee  unto  when  perplexed  and  cast  down 
in  this? 

SPIRITUAL  RICHES 

A  man  who  has  got  rich  suddenly  thinks  he  is  tall, 
when  he  is  only  high ;  he  thinks  he  has  done  his  work, 
when  he  has  only  got  his  tools  and  his  trade ;  —  for 
money,  honor,  power,  are  only  what  the  lapstone  and 
shoe-hammer  and  knife  are  to  the  shoemaker.  The 
art  to  use  these  is  only  the  trade,  not  the  work ;  means, 
not  end. 

If  you  want  to  get  rich,  to  get  office,  to  get  honor, 
America  is  the  best  country  under  the  sun  of  God,  and 
opportunities  are  plenty  enough.  But  if  you  wish  to 
seek  for  higher  things  you  must  go  on  your  own  feet, 
the  pioneer  even  of  yourself;  and  the  good  God  who 
was  with  the  slow  tongue  of  Moses,  and  brought  Israel 
out  of  Egypt,  will  go  before  you  as  a  pillar  of  cloud 
in  your  prosperity,  a  pillar  of  fire  in  the  day  of  trial, 
will  lead  you  into  the  land  of  promise;  dry-shod  you 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS       411 

shall  pass  the  Red  Sea,  and  find  angels'  bread  in  the 
wilderness,  and  water  in  the  rocks ;  every  mountain 
shall  smoke  with  the  presence  of  God,  and  glitter  with 
the  lightning  of  His  commandments ;  Jordan  shall  dry 
up  before  you,  as  your  feet  touch  it;  and,  bearing  the 
ark  of  God's  covenant  in  your  hand,  all  the  glories  of 
the  promised  land  shall  open  before  you. 

SPIRITUAL  ASSESSMENT 

What  if  the  assessors  of  this  city,  who  take  an  in- 
ventory of  our  worldly  property,  could  also  take  an 
inventory  of  the  spiritual  estates  which  men  have  ac- 
quired from  the  human  nature  born  in  them  and  the 
circumstances  about  them,  and  publish  an  annual  book, 
rating  men  as  they  will  stand  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
What  a  record  that  would  be !  What  odds  in  spiritual 
estates  would  you  see !  What  millionaires  of  piety, 
what  kings  of  nobleness,  nay,  what  emperors,  ruling 
whole  realms  of  virtue,  wisdom,  justice,  and  love;  what 
paupers  in  excellence,  yea,  what  slaves  in  respect  to 
manhood,  should  we  find ! 

But  this  is  no  fancy.  There  is  an  assessor  who  takes 
the  inventory ;  there  is  a  book  wherein  it  is  all  written 
down ;  you  and  I  and  all  other  men  have  each  a  page 
in  that  vast  book  ;  God  only  sees  it.  Every  day  we  get 
income  from  our  estate  exactl}^  in  proportion  to  what 
we  are  worth,  a  daily  dividend,  the  result  of  our  action ; 
and  it  is  all  posted  in  the  ledger  of  life,  which  is  the 
record  of  our  character.  God  is  the  Great  Accountant, 
and  the  laws  of  matter  and  of  mind  are  the  book-keep- 
ers that  never  err. 

TOLERATION 

You  and  I  talk  of  toleration ;  but  if  a  man  has  a 
name  for  God  different  from  ours,  we  give  him  a  bad 


412   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

name.  But  the  great  God  has  infinite  toleration  for 
all.  The  old  Egyptian  sculptured  out  an  ugly  sphinx, 
and  knelt  down  and  prayed  before  it ;  the  Greek,  out  of 
Parian  stone,  carved  a  statue  of  Venus  Aphrodite,  or 
Phoebus  Apollo,  the  god  of  the  sun,  and  knelt  down 
and  worshiped  it;  the  Catholic  carves  a  statue  of  the 
Virgin  Mary,  or  paints  it ;  and  the  cold  Puritan,  in  his 
unadorned  meeting-house,  with  no  sculpture  and  no  pic- 
ture, folds  his  hands,  and  prays  aloud  to  his  dreadful 
God ;  the  Quaker,  in  his  church,  with  no  ornament,  folds 
his  hands,  turns  inwardly  his  eyes,  and  utters  no  word. 
But  the  same  prayer  from  Egyptian,  Grecian,  Catho- 
lic, Puritan,  Quaker,  goes  up  to  God,  who  is  Father  and 
Mother  of  all  five,  and  blesses  each  alike.  It  is  not  the 
name  which  is  of  importance  ;  it  is  the  thing, 

THE   ORTHODOX    HEAVEN 

I  could  not  enjoy  the  popular  notion  of  heaven,  with 
nobody  in  it  except  good  orthodox  Christians.  A  few 
years  ago  a  minister  said  that  Dr.  Channing  undoubt- 
edly went  "  the  other  way," —  never  reached  heaven. 
If  I  had  been  that  orthodox  minister,  I  could  not  have 
slept  comfortably  for  a  single  night,  until  Doctor 
Channing  had  been  carried  up  there ;  nay,  if  I  had  gone 
there  myself,  with  my  orthodoxy  in  my  head,  and  found 
that  Doctor  Channing  was  left  out,  I  could  not  have 
taken  any  comfort  in  heaven  till  that  one  lost  soul  was 
restored.  Who  is  there  that,  if  he  should  go  to  heaven, 
and  find  that  Cain  had  been  cast  out,  and  Iscariot  left 
behind,  and  the  Boston  kidnapper's  ugly  face  missing 
from  that  place,  would  not  call  the  philanthropists 
together,  and  see  if  something  could  not  be  done  to 
bring  there  the  great  murderer,  the  great  betrayer,  and 
those  of  our  time  who  thirst  and  hunger  for  humaa 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      413 

souls?  Why,  we  could  not  sit  down  at  the  table  of  the 
Lamb  In  the  kingdom  of  God,  if  Cain  had  not  a  plate, 
and  Iscariot  a  chair,  and  if  there  was  not  room  for  the 
kidnapper  of  Boston. 

THE  FUNCTION  OF  PAIN 

The  fact  that  there  is  pain  in  the  world  of  man, 
which  while  it  serves  the  race,  has  no  compensating 
benefit  for  the  sufferer  here,  is  a  clear  indication  that 
pain  has  another  function  for  the  part  of  man  which  is 
not  material,  but  spiritual.  It  points  to  an  hereafter, 
—  and  one  for  beasts,  not  less  than  man ;  for  as  here 
on  earth  man's  body  seems  to  have  been  brought  to  its 
present  condition,  and  made  the  fitting  habitation  for 
a  master  mind  by  many  developments  through  inferior 
beasts,  which  keep  him  company  still  and  attend  his 
march,  so  I  doubt  not,  it  will  be  in  that  other  world; 
and  you  and  I  may  think  like  the  Indian,  that, 

"  Admitted  to  that  equal  sky, 
Our  faithful  dog  shall  bear  us  company." 

THE  SADNESS  OF  FUNERALS 

A  funeral  in  its  common  forms,  with  the  common 
ideas  connected  therewith  has  sometimes  seemed  to  me 
to  show  the  greatest  want  of  faith  in  God.  It  is  not 
taught  in  sermons  in  the  churches,  nor  set  forth  in 
prayer  and  psalm  at  funerals,  that  death  is  a  blessing 
to  the  dead,  that  the  grave  is  only  the  golden  gate  of 
immortality,  its  iron  side  turned  towards  us,  but  its 
pearly,  golden  side  turned  the  other  way,  only  the  gate 
which  lets  the  mortal  through.  We  bury  our  friends 
under  cold  clay,  with  the  publication  of  our  infidelity, 
when  the  soul  of  faith  in  God  ought  to  shine  out  of  our 


414   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

countenance,  and  beautify  the  cold  body  which  lies 
there  before  us,  whose  soul  has  winged  its  way  upwards 
to  its  Father. 

INFIDELS 

You  and  I  have  been  called  infidels.  We  are  so,  tried 
by  the  common  test.  Our  Christianity  is  not  the  com- 
mon form.  Our  form  of  religion  is  another  gospel; 
our  God  is  not  the  jealous  God  who  damns  the  sinner 
to  eternal  woe ;  not  a  God  who  subjects  the  soul  of  man 
to  a  law  of  sin  and  death,  but  makes  it  free  by  the 
great  law  of  His  spirit.  Yet  we  have  been  charged  with 
this  infidelity.  While  we  are  thus  different  from  other 
sects,  I  believe  we  have  not  been  charged  with  doubting 
the  infinity  of  God ;  never  with  a  disbelief  in  the  power 
of  truth,  justice,  love,  and  holiness  to  regenerate  your 
heart  and  mine,  to  regenerate  and  bless  the  world ;  never 
even  with  the  faintest  doubt  that  God's  purpose  was  a 
perfect  purpose,  His  plan  perfect,  and  the  human  means 
thereto  were  beautifully  designed  by  infinite  wisdom  to 
accomplish  His  end. 

HEROISM  OF  THE  SOUL 

Everybody  can  understand  the  physical  valor  which 
confronts  death  and  danger,  and  charges  up  to  the 
cannon's  mouth  in  battle ;  but  everybody  cannot  under- 
stand the  heroism  which  says,  "  Please  God,  I  will  keep 
the  integrity  of  my  conscience  undefiled,  though  you 
tear  my  flesh  with  wild  horses."  When  men  do  under- 
stand it,  they  pull  down  the  monument  of  the  soldier 
to  build  a  chapel  to  the  heroes  of  the  soul,  and  melt  up 
the  insignia  of  crowned  kings  to  get  gold  fine  enough 
to  write  the  name  of  some  tent-maker  or  fisherman.  At 
first  men  do  not  appreciate  this  heroism  of  the  soul. 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      415 

If  they  did  they  would  pluck  the  stars  out  of  heaven 
to  make  a  diadem  to  put  on  the  hero's  head. 

COMPENSATION 

I  know  not  how  men  without  religion  get  along  in 
the  world.  It  must  not  only  be  hard,  but  hopeless. 
Continually  there  are  sorrows  for  which  the  earth  has 
no  recompense.  Here  a  man  is  sacrificed.  The  world 
gains,  does  it?  It  is  the  man's  loss.  Arnold  von 
Winkelreid  takes  a  sheaf  of  Austrian  spears  in  his 
bosom,  breaks  thereby  the  Austrian  ranks,  the  swift 
tide  of  freedom  flows  through,  and  Switzerland  is  free. 
Winkelreid  is  dead,  his  fireside  chair  is  empty,  all  night 
the  dog  howls  for  his  master,  the  wife  is  a  widow,  his 
babes  fatherless.  What  recompense  is  there  on  earth? 
For  Hebrew  Jesus,  for  Roman  Regulus,  for  Athenian 
Socrates,  the  world  has  no  compensation.  Here  is  one 
born  so  that  education  is  impossible ;  want  makes  him 
a  clown.  This  girl  is  the  victim  of  circumstances ;  the 
world's  hardness  makes  her  short  life  one  long  blush 
of  infamy.  The  powers  of  human  nature  were  bom 
in  her,  she  was  made  for  heaven  ;  but  the  vices  of  society 
nipped  them  in  the  bud,  and  made  her  a  harlot.  Earth 
has  no  recompense.  What  compensation  is  there  to  the 
slave  for  his  bondage?  to  the  patriot  who  dies,  and  sees 
Turkey,  Italy,  Hungary,  France,  die  with  him  ?  Earth 
answers  not.  What  compensation  is  there  for  the 
blind?  Earth  has  none  to  show.  What  for  the  deaf? 
The  world  gives  no  answer.  What  for  the  fool  ?  Wis- 
dom knows  it  not.  The  compensation,  the  joy,  for 
their  discipline,  must  come  in  the  eternal  world.  I 
know  not  how ;  the  fact  I  am  sure  of.  That  one  and 
one  make  two  is  not  clearer  to  me.  I  am  not  more 
certain  of  my  own  existence.  It  follows  from  God's 
infinity. 


416   THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

God  left  us  free  a  little,  one  hand  winged  with  free- 
dom, the  other  bound  by  fate.  But  His  infinite  provi- 
dence, infinite  love,  must  so  overrule  the  world  that  no 
man  shall  suflfer  absolute  ill.  What  is  not  compensated 
now,  hereafter  God  Himself  will  pay.  Our  next  condi- 
tion must  depend,  not  on  our  circumstances  here,  not 
on  the  accidental  virtue  or  vice  which  these  circum- 
stances make,  but  on  the  use  ourselves  have  made  of  our 
gift  and  our  opportunity ;  and  though  the  little  that 
we  gain  may  be  so  little  that  men  despise  it  and  count 
it  vile,  God  treasures  it  up,  and  will  bless  us  for  that. 
Few  men  know  how  much  may  be  done  in  the  midst  of 
circumstances  that  seem  evil.  We  may  make  a  mini- 
mum of  sorrow  out  of  a  maximum  of  adverse  condi- 
tions ;  yea,  we  may  get  a  maximum  of  human  fidelity 
out  of  a  minimum  of  opportunity  and  gift.  It  is  an 
immense  advantage  to  know  the  soul's  immortality,  and 
be  sure  of  eternal  life ;  to  know  the  infinite  perfection 
of  God,  and  be  certain  that  the  great  Mother  folds  us 
in  her  arms  and  will  bless  us  for  ever.  The  greatest 
practical  thing  is  to  get  the  discipline  out  of  the  world, 
its  joy  and  its  sorrow.  It  is  a  hard  world,  is  it.^"  One 
day  we  shall  thank  God  for  its  hardness,  and  bless  him 
for  its  sorrow. 

COMFORT  IN   RELIGION 

Religion  is  to  help  us  endure  and  suffer  what  cannot 
be  avoided  and  overcome.  It  is  an  active  force  to  ener- 
gize and  harmonize  all  powers,  making  us  aspire.  But 
it  is  also  a  passive  force,  to  tranquillize,  to  calm,  to 
compose  the  consciousness  of  man,  to  give  us  peace, 
and  rest,  and  beauty,  and  tranquillity.  A  form  of  re- 
ligion which  is  only  for  activity  is  not  adequate  for  an^ 
man  during  his  whole  life. 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      417 

There  are  dark,  rainy  days  of  life,  when  no  man  can 
work,  days  full  of  affliction,  times  of  sickness,  disap- 
pointment, great  sadness  of  heart.  Then  we  want  com- 
fort, consolation,  peace,  and  rest.  Stout,  vigorous, 
hearty,  and  in  haste,  I  want  a  horse,  and  a  swift  one, 
to  carry  me  up  hill  and  down ;  but  old,  feeble,  tired, 
spent,  I  want  a  staff  to  lean  on,  a  pillow  to  sleep  on. 

The  old  forms  of  religion  had  very  little  comfort 
for  the  old,  the  feeble,  the  sick,  the  disappointed,  and 
the  bereaved.  I  wonder  not  that  there  was  in  Rama  a 
voice  heard,  lamentation  and  mourning, —  Rachel  weep- 
ing for  her  children,  and  refusing  to  be  comforted. 
There  was  small  comfort  for  her  in  the  theology  of 
those  times.  The  old  armies  went  forth  to  battle  without 
doctor  or  surgeon,  without  lint  or  bandage,  or  ambu- 
lance. Jehovah,  Baal,  Jupiter,  had  priests  by  the  hun- 
dred in  their  camp,  never  a  doctor.  It  was  very  much 
so  with  the  old  forms  of  religion.  They  were  for  ac- 
tion, not  for  consolation.  The  Old  Testament  is  a  col- 
lection of  brave  books,  the  works  of  deep-hearted  men, 
strong-minded  men  some  of  them,  some  full  of  beauty, 
others  full  of  consciousness  of  right,  all  of  them  trem- 
bling before  their  God.  Now  and  then  there  are  words 
of  comfort ;  others  scattered  here  and  there  into  which 
we  impart  our  own  consolation.  True,  the  Bible  has 
no  jeers  for  the  unfortunate;  but  it  has  small  comfort 
for  the  poor,  the  decrepit,  the  sick,  the  disappointed, 
and  the  sinful ;  it  is  a  dreadful  book  for  those,  taken 
as  a  whole.  The  captive  Jews  hung  their  harps  on  the 
willows ;  there  was  no  consolation  for  them  when  they 
thought  of  Jerusalem  trod  under  the  Gentile's  foot. 
The  Old  Testament  is  a  sad  book  to  die  by.  It  might 
hold  up  the  hands  of  strong  Moses,  fighting  against 
Amalek ;  but  when  you  come  to  stand  by  the  grave  of 
XI— 27 


418      THE  WORLD  OF  MATTER  AND  MAN 

wife  or  child,  it  is  a  hard  book,  and  poor ;  and  when  a 
people  stood  at  the  grave  of  their  nation,  no  comfort 
sprang  out  of  the  ground ;  it  was  Rachel  mourning  for 
her  children,  and  refusing  to  be  comforted,  because  they 
were  not.  The  old  forms  of  heathen  religion  were  no 
better,  most  of  them  were  far  worse.  True,  immor- 
tality shone  on  the  Grecian  hills  with  a  fairer  light  than 
of  old  lit  up  Horeb  and  Lebanon  and  Zion;  but  the 
classic  forms  of  religion  were  very  sad  at  the  best  for 
the  sick,  the  disappointed,  and  the  afflicted.  Jupiter, 
Apollo,  Venus,  Minerva,  were  gods  that  loved  the 
conquerors,  not  the  conquered ;  one  can  get  very  little 
comfort  from  these  worldly  deities,  that  honor  the  suc- 
cessful, and  such  only. 

But  let  me  be  sure  of  the  infinite  providence  of  God 
first,  then  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and  I  can  face 
anything  in  the  shape  of  sorrow,  disappointment,  sick- 
ness, death.  I  know  it  is  for  a  little  while,  and  now; 
and  everlastingly  it  is  overruled  by  the  infinite  love  of 
the  great,  dear  Mother  of  the  world.  So  I  will  be  still. 
I  can  conceive  of  nothing  which  a  man  cannot  bear  with 
fortitude,  if  sure  of  these  two  things. 

THE  HIGHEST  JOY 

I  never  undervalue  any  form  of  normal  joy.  I  re- 
joice in  the  humble  pleasures  of  the  insect,  of  the  worm 
that  eats  my  rosebuds  in  the  spring  before  their  open- 
ing hour.  I  like  to  see  the  happiness  which  spring 
awakens  in  the  bosom  of  the  frog  and  toad ;  the  joys  of 
sheep  and  oxen  are  dear  to  me.  I  love  the  happiness 
of  children,  of  the  soft  baby,  rejoicing  in  its  mother's 
arms,  of  the  stammering  little  one,  whose  first  word 
seems  a  Spartan  achievement.  I  love  to  see  the  happi- 
ness of  boys,  with  ball  and  sled  and  skate,  of  girls  with 


MAN  IN  HIS  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS      419 

hoop  and  doll  and  dainty  joyous  games ;  to  see  the  joys 
of  men,  rude  men  and  poorly  developed  too,  whose  talk 
is  of  oxen  and  ships  and  shops  and  markets  and  divi- 
dends,—  this  undeveloped  clown  of  the  country,  joying 
in  nothing  but  his  clover,  this  undeveloped  clown  of 
the  city,  joying  in  his  cotton.  I  love  to  see  the  joys 
of  successful  enterprise ;  I  love  the  proud  and  brave 
delight  of  science,  of  letters,  and  artistic  skill,  of  such 
as  trace  the  way  to  every  star,  of  such  as  unroll  the 
wonders  of  the  ancient  scroll  beneath  our  feet,  of  such 
as  disenchant  the  flesh  of  pain,  or  send  the  well-tended 
fire  of  heaven  to  extinguish  the  accidental  fires  that  men 
have  left  untended  here  on  earth.  I  love  the  joys  of 
men  who  unroll  the  mighty  volume  of  human  conscious- 
ness, and  with  metaphysical  eye  and  Ariadne  thread 
wind  through  this  labj-rinthine  world  of  man.  I  love 
the  joys  of  the  historian,  moralist,  bard,  of  men  in 
youth  seeking  the  object  of  instinctive  passion  in  blame- 
less wedlock,  of  men  seeking  the  objects  of  Instinctive 
affection,  and  finding  themselves  anew  in  the  little  im' 
mortals  God  drops  into  their  arms.  I  value  all  these 
things ;  yea,  I  bless  in  my  morning  and  my  midnight 
prayer  the  dear  God  who  so  plentifully  spreads  the 
table  with  such  various  food,  for  lofty  and  for  little 
men.  But  I  must  not  forbear  to  say  that  the  joy  of 
loving  God  alone  surpasses  all  these  joys,  and  hinders 
none,  nay,  helps  all. 


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